Kith and Kin
by CoronaIgnis
Summary: When Jack and Maddie let slip that they've experimented with ghost hybrids, Team Phantom is determined to learn everything they can about the project. The only problem- they don't like where it's headed. At all.
1. Prologue: Lineage

I was fourteen when I stopped tripping over my parents' names.

At first everyone (meaning Sam and Tucker) thought it was a good thing. After all, I had a secret identity to protect; Danny Phantom had no reason to call Maddie "Mom" or Jack "Dad." He had no reason to keep stumbling and stuttering around them. It was easy with Maddie- her name started with M- but it was a minor miracle that Jack never noticed when I started his name with a D.

Yes, they are both oblivious, which is usually a very good thing.

Anyways, back on topic. I had _finally _managed to call them by their given names without slipping up. In fact, I didn't even _think _of saying "Mom" or "Dad." I was pretty proud of myself, thinking that I'd finally divided my human and ghost selves so effectively that no one (sans those who already knew) would ever find out.

Then I went home and asked Maddie- _Maddie, _not Mom- how her day was.

Fortunately she was so put out by not capturing my ghost self that she didn't notice my blunder, but I did. It freaked me out- did it mean that my ghost self was overshadowing (pun not intended) my humanity? I'd seen what would occur if I let _that_ happen, so I went to the one person who might understand why my halves were blending in this weird new way: my sister and personal therapist, Jazz.

Amazingly, she didn't wax eloquent with psycho-babble for _hours_ and hours on end. She just nodded sadly and explained that as Phantom took up more of my half-life, I became more accustomed to seeing Jack and Maddie in their hunter/enemy guises. Therefore, my unconscious mind was beginning to recognize them not as loving, nurturing parents, but as threats to be avoided at all costs. This avoidance had several manifestations: physical, as in flying away in ghost form or distancing my human self; mental, constantly reminding myself that they were enemies; and finally emotional, which meant that I really didn't think of them as parents anymore.

Needless to say, I flatly refused to admit that she was right. Ghost hunters or not, they _were_ my parents: they had loved me, fed me, changed my diapers, kissed my cuts (at least before I started hiding them), told me stories, comforted me after nightmares (this was before the nightmares started featuring them). In short, they were everything a mom and dad should be.

But as time went on, as I even started _thinking_ of them as Jack and Maddie the ghost hunters, I grudgingly acknowledged that maybe Jazz knew what she was talking about. It was not a fun process. It was more like tearing a Band-Aid off too slowly. When I was fifteen, half-dead for a year and a half, I finally admitted to myself that I had a new family now.

Like me, this new clan was part human and part ghost, with another halfa thrown in for good measure. It was a bizarre, mismatched group of weirdos, but hey, why not? "Normal" (and I say that sarcastically- no one is ever normal, no matter how much they try to pretend) people wouldn't be able to handle the stresses associated with ghost hybrids.

First there was Jazz, the only member of my childhood family to make the cut. She's the best big sister in both worlds- just don't tell her that. We have this whole sibling rivalry thing going; if she knew I respect her she'd never let me live it down. She's my medic and professional liar, my therapist and strategist, though she's not very good at the physical side of ghost hunting. Sure, she can make new weapons and fight hand-to-hand, but Jazz inherited our father's aim. That's why she prefers the Fenton Peeler to the Fenton Thermos- she's less likely to shoot me with it.

Next up is Danni, my tough and fiery twin. Admittedly, we're not exactly _conventional _twins in the sense that she was "born" when I was fourteen and Maddie doesn't know she exists, but we're twins nonetheless. We even kinda-sorta grew up together, thanks to my favorite time ghost and deliberate amnesia. It's complicated, okay? All you need to know is that I used to have an imaginary half-ghost friend named Danni Fenton-Phantom (which is actually how I got my pseudonym- time travel is weird like that) who was my age and always hung out with me. Then Clockwork (more about him later) erased our memories so I could befriend Sam and Tucker and Danni wouldn't recognize me when she was living with Vlad. Like I said, complicated. If I have time when this entire messed-up story is done I'll tell you more.

My third and final sibling is Tucker Foley, goofball and techno-geek extraordinaire. Seriously, the dude's PDA is enchanted or something. How else could he do all that amazing stuff with it? I don't even know what half his techno-stuff is, much less how to operate it. Without Tucker hacking into Skulker's suit or blowing up Technus with a computer virus or making FentonWork's meager defenses ignore me, I'd have been captured and dissected a long time ago.

Lately I've been trying to hook Tucker up with Jazz or Danni so we can really, literally be brothers, but he's not cooperating. Is this how he felt when Sam and I were being clueless? If it is, I really feel sorry for him. And Jazz. And our parents. And Mr. Lancer. And everyone who kept trying and failing to get us together.

Sam, by the way, is my girlfriend. Because of that I don't really count her as part of my new foster-family- it would be weird to date someone who was related to you. Simply put, Sam is amazing. She's Goth, though not as extremely dark as she was a few years ago, an animal and plant lover, and an ultra-recyclo vegetarian. She has the best aim of my entire team, though she's weakest in techno stuff. That's fine, though; we've got Tucker and, to a lesser extent, Jazz, for that. She's also very fit physically and capable of taking down a few minor ghosts (i.e., the ones too stupid to go intangible) with her bare hands. Trust me, you have not seen epic until you've watched Sam get into a catfight- literally- with an undead saber-toothed tiger. And _win_.

See why I love her?

These guys are my core, the best Earth has to offer. Without them- well, I've seen what would happen if I lost them. It isn't pretty.

That… incident… when I saw what losing them would do to me is actually how I met the first of my full-ghost kinsmen, Clockwork. I'm not exactly certain what he is to me- part brother, part second father, part favorite teacher. The point is, we're related. He's the Master of All Time with all the duties and power that title implies. Remember the whole complicated Danni- imaginary friend- time travel thing I mentioned earlier? Clockwork's the one responsible for that, which really shows you just how brilliant he really is. He and Jazz, who has an IQ in the 200s, will often get together to discuss history or quantum physics or some other thing I don't understand, much to the chagrin of his obnoxious employers, the Observants. They don't like me. They wanted to kill me once (though for a totally justified reason that I don't like talking about), but the plan backfired and they decided to make Clockwork my guardian ghost. That _really _backfired.

Pandora has a far more defined role in my little family. She's my slightly scary great-aunt, a fierce and powerful warrior. She trained me in sword, spear, javelin, bow and arrows, all kinds of archaic weapons until I thought my arms would fall off. Speaking of arms, she's got four of them, which is odd even for ghosts. Sam thinks that the Hindus once glimpsed her and got the idea for Kaali, a multi-armed goddess of destruction, from that glance. I wouldn't be surprised. After all, look at what the ancient Greeks did to her. They turned my tough butt-kicking great-aunt into some meek little girl with a box. The box bit is accurate. The other stuff is not.

She hates that myth, by the way. If you value your life, you will never mention it in her presence. Same with Clockwork and Chronos.

My next ghostly relatives, Frostbite and Pyrrha, are respectively the King of Ice and Queen of Fire. I mention them together because they're getting married in about a month to end a centuries-old war between their respective nations, Far Frozen and the Burning Lands. They're both elementals who trained me when I got my ice and fire powers. Unfortunately, they used to hate each other's guts until Danni and I lost patience and introduced them. It was love at first sight, and the peace treaty was signed within an hour. Us halfas were a bit worried about that- we'd only wanted the peace treaty, not the marriage, and they'd only just met- but Clockwork says that their love will only grow greater as the years pass by. He would know, so we put aside our misgivings and agreed to become maid of honor and best man. If and when they have children, we're going to be the godparents.

Speaking of godparents, I actually already have a goddaughter. Her name is Box Lunch. Yes, _the _Box Lunch, daughter of the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady. I didn't know they'd made me godfather until ol' Boxy showed up one day when I was in the shower and told me that I had to baby-sit my goddaughter at seven that night. Apparently, since I am "mighty enough to defeat the all-powerful BOX GHOST," they figure I'm a "worthy candidate for a being of such power." Personally, I think they just wanted a sitter they didn't have to pay. So far, Box Lunch (who is actually a very cute toddler. She's kind of grown on me) hasn't really shown signs of "possessing ultimate power," but I don't mind. Baby-sitting her is a nice break from the constant chaos of my half-life.

Last but not least are my cousins, Princess Dorothea the Gentle of Aragon and Wulf, escaped convict and inter-dimensional refugee. Dora is a shape-shifting medieval dragoness and one of Sam's best friends. It's kind of odd, because Sam is tomboyish and Dora's kind of girly, but they're surprisingly close. Wulf is… well, a wolf. A big, broad-shouldered, black-furred, fanged, clawed wolf who only speaks Esperanto, the _lingua franca_ of the Ghost Zone.

There you have it: the most important people in my entire world, and only two are related to me. I suppose that blood doesn't matter, that it's the thought that counts. Cheesy, I know, and usually associated with lousy too-small birthday gifts that you'd never wear in public, but true.

These ten people (eleven if you count Box Lunch), together with less important characters like the Fentons and random ghosts, are the warp and weft of my life. We have a system: I hunt ghosts, they train and help and cover for me. Without them, I would die.

I'm repeating myself, aren't I. Sorry.

Anyways, I established this little family pretty early on. Until Frostbite and Pyrrha have a kid, it's not going to grow any bigger. Other people like Amorpho and the Dairy King might dance around at the fringes, but my main family is pretty stable.

Blood doesn't matter. Sure, Danni and Jazz are related to me, but that's insignificant. It doesn't matter _at all._

Really.

At least, that's what I keep telling myself. Because if I don't, if I think about what I've learned of my own heritage, I will scream.

* * *

Hey everybody, this is Corona (duh.). Ready to start guessing what he's talking about? C'mon, I dare you.

Disclaimer: I do not, have never, and will never own Danny Phantom. Please note that this disclaimer covers my ENTIRE story, not just this chapter.


	2. Family Secrets

Don't ask me when I started wondering why Jack and Maddie were so adamant that humans couldn't have ghost powers. Maybe it was when I first got my own powers. Maybe it was when my classmates were overshadowed by those bug ghosts and they REFUSED to see what was blatantly obvious to anyone who looked. The blindness didn't surprise me- if they hadn't noticed that their son was Danny Phantom, their vision was decidedly less than 20/20- but I couldn't help wondering why they were so unwilling to even consider the possibility.

I asked Jazz about it once and instantly regretted it. She kept blathering on about "subconscious aversion to hybridization" and stuff like that. For a while I forgot about it, but when they gave a long lecture on how overshadowed "meat puppets" didn't have access to ghost powers at a town meeting, I remembered my earlier curiosity. So I did the obvious thing and asked at supper that night.

It had been a pretty quiet day. No one had shown up but good old Boxy and Klemper. I didn't have much homework, and except for the three-hour town meeting, Jack and Maddie had spent the day at the grocery store, so I didn't have to worry about any new weapons. Even our food was homey and boring- Hawaiian pizza with carrots on the side. Maddie hadn't really had enough time to cook.

Taking another slice from the pan, I casually asked, "Hey, Mom, Dad, why do you say that humans can't have ghost powers?"

"Because they can't, sweetie," Maddie replied. She'd already finished, so she got up to carry away her plate.

_That explains everything, _I thought sarcastically. "Yeah, but why not?"

"Because they can't," she repeated.

I was starting to get annoyed. "But how do you know that? It's not like anyone has ever tried giving ghost powers to some random human."

Maddie dropped her plate. She stood there, stiff and frozen as Frostbite's realm, not bothering to pick up the shattered porcelain. She did not turn around.

Surprisingly, it was Jack who answered. That was my second clue that something was wrong. He never speaks during meals, choosing to focus on devouring as much food as he could get away with. Jazz and I often joke that the only time he _doesn't _blather on about ghosts is when his mouth is full.

"They just can't, son," he said, ignoring his half-eaten pizza.

"Yeah, but why?" If it was big enough to make Jack stop eating, I wanted to know.

Maddie turned around. Her face was white as the broken dish. "Human and ghost DNA are incompatible," she snapped. "They don't mix; if they do, the human DNA will either overcome the ghost or the human will be destroyed. Now come over here and clean this up."

"But I haven't finished eating yet!"

She ignored me, and I spent the next several minutes hunting down little shards of plate. By the time I was done, my pizza had gotten cold. I briefly considered using my fire powers to warm it up before deciding that I wasn't that hungry. Mumbling something about homework, I retreated into my room.

For once, the teachers had had mercy on their poor miserable victims. No one- _no one_- had given homework. Tucker thought it was an omen of the apocalypse or another ghost invasion. Fortunately, my ghost sense guaranteed that none of our teachers were overshadowed. That didn't rule out the apocalypse hypothesis, but since apocalypses around here were apt to involve ghosts I wasn't too concerned.

"Going ghost."

It's hard to describe how it feels to change shapes. It's a feeling like dry water washing over you, if that makes any sense. If it doesn't, I'm sorry, but that's the only description I can think of.

Two years ago at age fifteen I'd outgrown my HAZMAT suit, so Jazz had designed me a new uniform. It was a black tunic with my logo over a long-sleeved gray shirt, green-slashed cargo pants, a gray belt for my thermos, and two Sam-style combat boots. Carefully keeping the shields on my ecto-signature up and ready, I stuck my head through the floor.

The Fentons were uncharacteristically serious as they faced each other across the kitchen table.

"-cts?" I think Jack was asking a question. His voice went up at the last syllable in a questioning way.

"He can't," was Maddie's response. "After all, we've never mentioned it to anyone. It's just an innocent question, that was all." She chuckled nervously. "He's probably upstairs wondering why we reacted like that."

Her husband nodded, his happy nature reasserting itself. "Yeah, that's it." He laughed. "You know, until Danny asked, I'd completely forgotten it!"

"Me, too, honey. Isn't it funny how things like that happen?"

_How things like what happen?_ I wondered. _And what's 'it?' _

Contrary to popular belief, I was not stupid. Clueless, yes, but never stupid, and even that had gotten a lot better since Sam and I started dating. Something was obviously up, and it involved a) something they didn't want me to know, which implied either illegal activity (not likely) or something not illegal but still frowned upon, b) humans with ghost powers, and c) extremely uncharacteristic secrecy.

With my luck, it would come back to haunt us any day now.

The whole "humans with ghost powers" bit made me think of Vlad's accident with the proto-portal, but that didn't fit. It was no secret that he'd spent years in the hospital with a bizarre case of ecto-acne, so they wouldn't be so nervous about that getting out. Also, I knew that they had thought of his illness several times before I'd mentioned the mysterious 'it.'

To me, it sounded like they'd deliberately experimented on someone in a horribly failed attempt to give them ghost powers. That certainly fulfilled a, b, and c; it was a major social no-no, it obviously involved ghost hybrids, and the failure might have been sufficient to keep them silent. Still, something nagged at me.

Years of ghost fighting had honed my instincts. They'd saved my skin several times, like when Skulker had tried to lead me into an ambush or when I'd cured Sam and Tucker's (and Vlad's, I suppose) ecto-acne with diet soda. If they said something wasn't right about the experiment hypothesis, there was something wrong with the experiment hypothesis. It was as simple as that.

So what was it?

Their conversation had degenerated into a rant against my ghost half (most of their talks did that eventually), so I removed my head from the floor. Returning to human form, I plopped down on my bed, thinking furiously.

My first impulse was to go to Clockwork, but he would just smile mysteriously and give me some cryptic hint that I wouldn't understand until after the impending fiasco was done. Then he'd laugh at me when I tried to get more info. So I did the next best thing.

"Mom! Dad! I'm going over to Sam's house!" Without giving them a chance to respond, I darted out the door, went ghost, and flew. I was there in seconds.

Unfortunately, my girlfriend's family ate late. They were in the middle of supper. Sulking, I left a note on her pillow before soaring over to Tucker's house.

The Foleys had already eaten, and I immediately related everything that had happened earlier. He listened with a bemused expression. When I was done, my friend commented, "Well, it sounds like they tried to experiment on something."

"Don't you mean some_one_?"

"Not necessarily," the techno-geek replied. "It's more likely they tried to fuse a mouse with ectoplasm or something. You know how flighty they are. When the mouse didn't get ghost powers, they decided it was impossible and gave up."

I frowned. "But wouldn't the mouse have become a halfa?"

"Not necessarily," Tucker explained. "We don't know the exact way you and Vlad were changed. For all we know, you need this much ectoplasm or this much electricity. If they tried injecting the mouse, the ectoplasm would have left its system within days. You and Vlad bonded at a genetic level."

"…Don't ever say that again. It just sounds wrong."

Tuck laughed.

Then Sam arrived, and we had to repeat the entire story for her. Naturally, she was enraged at the hypothetical mouse's plight and went into a rant on animal rights before we could drag her back on topic. Yes, animal experimentation was horrible and yes, we did care, but we had slightly more important things to worry about than a mouse that might not exist.

"Think they kept any files?" Sam speculated.

Tuck and I glanced at one another. "If they did," my friend said slowly, "it would be electronic. I don't suppose you have any idea how long ago this happened?"

"Nope. I suppose we could ask Clockwork, but…." I trailed off. Sam and Tuck grimaced. We all liked Clockwork, but he enjoys being mysterious way too much. "The files are probably pretty old, though. I don't remember hearing anything about this, and you know they can't keep their mouths shut."

"Except they did," pointed out Sam. "Start out with the oldest files and work your way forward. Look for the heavily encrypted stuff- if they actually managed to hide this from Danny, it's gotta be top secret, and that means extra security."

"Gotcha." He checked his watch. "I'll come over tomorrow for a hack-fest. Danny, can you provide a distraction?"

I groaned. "When did 'provide a distraction' become synonymous with 'let them chase me around town'?"

"I believe it was in January of our sophomore year."

"That was a rhetorical question, Tuck."

"But it was still a question."

"Shouldn't you be on patrol or something?" Sam snapped at me.

I gave her my best Cujo-eyes. She was not moved. Dang. "Fine. I'll go patrolling. Wanna come?"

Aside from a school of giant piranhas attacking a knitting club (where Sam's amazing grandmother was holding them off with her knitting needles), patrol was uneventful. Plus I got cookies from a bunch of grateful old ladies, so it was a good night.

At least, until I started dreaming.

Halfas have a weird physiology, and that carries over to our sleeping habits. Humans sleep every night. Ghosts don't, but every once in a while they go into hibernation for a few days. Halfas are, as our name suggests, half between. We need to sleep every night, but only for four or five hours unless we're in hibernation mode, when we conk out for just over a day. Because we have such a bizarre sleep schedule, we don't dream as much as full-breeds. It's not that the percentages are messed up, it's just that we have less total sleep time and therefore less dreamtime.

The first weird thing about my dream was that it was longer than usual, but nothing happened for most of the time. I was just sitting in a cramped cage with glowing green bars, presumably ectoranium. Since I was in human form, it didn't hurt, but I still huddled as far from it as possible, right in the middle of the cage.

Everything outside the bars was blurry, faded, but I thought it might be the lab. At least, I thought that when I woke up and started to think about the dream. Then, curled in a fetal position in a cramped frightening space, I didn't think at all. Instead, I _felt. _

Terror, old familiar terror. Loneliness, but relief that no one else was there, because the Others meant pain, and being alone was better than being hurt. Misery because I'd never done anything wrong except exist as a freak.

Self-loathing, because I was a freak. A project.

Then light came in, defiling the soft warm darkness, and I fought back a sob. The terror and misery surged, but I tried to face it squarely. The Others didn't like it when I cried. Still, my eyes squeezed shut, unaccustomed to the painful brightness.

Poke, poke, sharp pricks in my legs and upper arms that put fire in my veins. Finally I couldn't hold back the screams.

"I almost feel sorry for it," said the Orange Other.

"Don't be," the Blue Other replied. "It's only a ghost."

I woke up panting, trembling, tied up in my sweat-soaked sheets like a mummy. Deep breaths, Fenton-Phantom. Deep breaths.

After regaining my equilibrium, I phased through the sheets and ambled over to the dream diary Jazz was making me keep. Most of it was written in code- my DP symbol for myself, a reversed DP for Dan and things related to him, Danni's more feminine variant for dreams involving the time she'd melted into a puddle of goop.

What? I have a lot of nightmares. It's an occupational hazard of being a superhero.

_Variant of #2, following alterations: cage instead of table, no sense of self. No dissection/visible blood; needles. Not sure if it was DP, probably result of earlier conversation. _

Nightmare #2 is a dream about Jack and Maddie dissecting me. We call it that because it's the second recurring dream I got after the accident, right after the standard rejection nightmare. You guys can understand it because I've already described the dream to you, but no one else will be able to decode this. I like my secrets. They keep me alive, or at least half-alive.

I shivered slightly, feeling immensely sorry for the poor subject in my dream. It wasn't a mouse- I knew enough about projection of my own insecurities to recognize that the dream was only loosely based off what I'd learned that day- but I could sympathize. After all, Jack and Maddie were_ very _vocal concerning what they wanted to do with Phantom. Needles, for them, were downright tame.

Suddenly another thought struck me. I dropped the pen.

Why had they quit?


	3. Godfather and Child

I was edgy and restless in school the next day, my head filled with images of frantically squeaking green mice dissolving into goo like Danni once had. The three ghosts who attacked found their opponent distracted and slow, which made me easier to injure and allowed them more time to wreak havoc. There were four pop quizzes, too, which restored Tucker's belief in the natural order of the universe ("I _knew _they wouldn't just slack off homework like that!") but did not help my grades. I had the sinking feeling that three were Ds and the fourth a C.

We called Jazz at lunchtime, sneaking out onto the roof so no one would overhear us. She contributed a much more disturbing idea than our mouse hypothesis.

"If it were only some kind of animal, they wouldn't have kept quiet. Yes, Sam, I know that animal testing is bad, but it's not something you hide away from society, and it's certainly not something that would make Dad stop eating."

"But if it's not an animal, then-"

"Exactly." Jazz's voice was hard, grim. "I think they experimented on themselves."

We were silent for a few moments. Then Tucker asked, "Uh, why do you say that? I mean, how do you know that they didn't find someone else?"

"Because that's not how they function. Mom and Dad are _horrible_ to ghosts, but that's only because _they don't see ghosts as human._ They view the world in black and white, evil and good, ghosts and humans. They would never take someone off the streets and deliberately diminish his or her humanity. Think of their self-images: valiant, selfless crusaders against the foul forces of darkness." She was beginning to sound sarcastic. "They believe themselves capable and _worthy _of making great sacrifices for that crusade. That means they tried it on themselves."

"So why are they so secretive?" I wondered. "They like showing off their sacrifices." I thought of something else. "Maybe they tried to humanize a ghost?"

"No. First, if they'd actually captured a ghost they'd have flaunted it. They'd have used it to prove that ghosts existed, and then the government would have come in and confiscated it or the media would have paid so much attention that they couldn't have gotten any experiments done, much less one so obviously secret. It would have been impossible. Second, even if they did somehow capture a ghost, they wouldn't be ashamed of trying to humanize it. Third, they're not very good ghost hunters. Even the Box Ghost usually escapes from them. Danny is the only ghost they manage to hit on a regular basis. Fourth, they reacted to 'giving a human ghost powers,' not anything else, which strongly implies that that's exactly what they did." She paused for breath. "So they had to have started out with something alive, presumably themselves."

The three of us were nodding. "That's really smart, Jazz," I complimented slowly, "but… something about it seems off. I just… I don't think they would have experimented on each other. I'm not being logical, because what you're saying makes sense, it's just that it doesn't feel right."

Tucker shrugged. "We won't know until we've read their files," he pointed out.

"Good point," acknowledged Jazz. "E-mail me maybe a year's worth of files. It'll go faster that way."

"Will do," my techno-geek friend promised. "Bye."

"Bye, you three. Good luck."

* * *

School ends at three thirty on the dot. I got detention (thank you, Desiree), so _I _got out at four thirty on the dot.

Distraction time.

Tucker, PDA in hand, laptop on his back, was waiting in the side alley. I grinned at him, shifted into ghost form, quickly assessing the mental shields that kept my ghost powers from showing up on radar (it was a trick I'd picked up from Clockwork. Shields were different for every ghost- I hid my ghostliness in my humanity; he pushed his signature a single millisecond into the future). They were fine. Smiling cheerily, I walked up to the front door.

_Ding dong_!

Fortunately, it was Jack who answered the door. His jaw sagged. I grinned, unable to help myself.

"Boo."

"GHOOOOOOST!" The hunter's scream of horror echoed for no less than five city blocks, terrifying innocent pigeons and causing dogs to bark wildly. He grabbed a ginormous ecto-cannon from _somewhere-_ I didn't want to know where- and fired.

I jumped into the air, singing, "Can't catch me!" Then, to add insult to insult, I stuck out my tongue.

Jack was incensed. "MADDIE! START UP THE GAV!"

I laughed. "Bye!"

The Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle (commonly known as the GAV or RV) shot through the garage door and down the driveway, stopping only so Jack could leap in. Then they were off.

I looked back only once, and saw Tucker calmly walking up to the open door.

* * *

"Got everything?"

"Is Klemper annoying?"

"Good."

"I haven't looked through everything, but I think some of these records go back to their college days. Hopefully we won't have to look through those- if they did this in college, Vlad was involved somehow. I figure we'll start maybe a year before Jazz was born and work our way forward." He paused. "But we can stop when they start working on the Fenton Portal."

"Good plan," I agreed. "How about you send Jazz the first year we're interested in. Sam can take the next few months…. You're fastest, you can take a year and a half…. And I'll get started on whatever comes next."

"You should take the lightest load," Tuck disagreed. "After all, you're the main ghost hunter." He frowned. "You think Danni-with-an-i could help?"

I hid a grin. Perhaps my matchmaking wasn't a total failure. "Maybe," I said, deliberately casual. "Why don't you call her and find out?"

He gave me an odd look- maybe I'd been too casual- but dug out his cell phone and speed-dialed my twin. Their conversation went something like this: Tuck explained what happened, Danni commented on how weird it was, Tuck agreed, Danni said that she'd love to help but the Infi-map, which she was using to monitor naturally occurring portals, predicted ten in the next three days and by the time she had time, we'd probably be done. She then ordered us to keep her posted, he made a teasing comment about "Are you sure you'll have the time?" they exchanged goodbyes and hung up.

"Did you hear everything?" he asked.

I nodded. Halfas have enhanced senses, which makes school lunches even worse than they were before. Other than that, though, they're great- the senses, not the lunch. "How long d'you think I should take?"

Tucker shrugged. "Three months, maybe. Hey, I just thought of something. You or Sam will be reading about what happened when you were born! Wanna bet there's tons of embarrassing baby stories in their records?"

"No, I don't want to bet. We both know there will be." I wasn't that scared of baby stories, at least not with my friends. They'd seen me in way more mortifying situations over the years.

My techno-geek friend dug out his laptop and began copying and sending the relevant files. "Some of these are pretty encrypted," he commented. "I think that Jazz can crack most of them, but you and Sam are hopeless with tech. If you notice any firewalls or extra security, send the files to me and I'll get you in. I'm just amazing like that."

"Yeah. That's one word for it."

"Shut up, Danny."

It turned out that I didn't get any reading done that day. Skulker showed up as I was flying home, then Valerie interrupted our fight to try and eliminate me. She has anger management issues. Anyways, she chased me around town for about an hour before I managed to ditch her. Then, when I had _almost_ gotten home, the Box Ghost showed up and told me that he and the Lunch Lady were going out for a romantic dinner that night and I had to watch their kid. He was gone before I could say no.

So I ran (now in human form, duh) into my room, grabbed my homework-filled backpack, and shouted something about a study session at Sam's house. She would cover for me.

Boxy and his bride were waiting impatiently. They reminded me that emergency numbers were on the fridge and to have little Box Lunch in bed by nine (unlike fully grown ghosts, babies have a don't hibernate. They have a human sleep schedule). Then they were gone.

"Wait!" I shouted after them. "You didn't say when you'll be back!"

No answer, the jerks. I silently vowed to demand a raise- not that they paid me in the first place.

Confession time: I actually kind of like my goddaughter. Despite her shameful parentage, she's a pretty cute kid, except for that one time she puked all over my shirt. Contrary to what her mother claims, that was not cute _at all. _

I set her in a little bouncy chair and started on homework: two worksheets, a couple math problems, and a chapter for English class. Fortunately, Box Lunch loves that bouncy chair. She stayed in it for almost an hour, by which time I was almost done with everything. Contrary to popular belief, homework doesn't take too much of my day. It's just that between the ghost attacks and everything else, I rarely have time to just sit down and get it done.

We played for a while after that, simple things like peek-a-boo or patty-cake. Soon it was time to sleep, so I read her a little story from one of those cardboard books and tucked her into bed.

By nine-thirty, my homework was all done and I'd actually read ahead for English class. Box Lunch was sleeping soundly. I considered watching TV, but since that might wake her up. Bored, I ruffled through my backpack.

Jackpot!

It was _Reign of King: A Comprehensive Chronicle of Pariah Dark. _At least, that was the translation. The entire thing was Esperanto.

Some would call my interest in the locked-up ghost king morbid. The dude had a soul-eating hippo monster as his pet and laid waste to half the Ghost Zone. Well, I have every right to be morbid. I'm half ghost with a Gothic girlfriend. If I didn't have at least a tiny morbid streak, Jazz would be very worried about me. Besides, history is one of my favorite subjects.

I was on the fourth chapter, which chronicled Pariah's early years on the throne. This was where things got interesting. The first chapter had just been an overview of what the Ghost Zone was like back then. The second was mainly speculation about Pariah's mysterious childhood. The third told how he'd ascended the throne.

_The King of All Ghosts is so renowned for his insatiable appetite for conquest and cruelty that very few individuals, even historians, remember that he was once a wise and just monarch. Immediately following his coronation, the young ruler created a legal code of surprising sophistication. _

It went on to describe aspects of the First Law, which included things like gender equality, good treatment for thralls, and even a rudimentary insurance system. I was _floored. _Other books had mentioned the Golden Age, but they'd never mentioned just how "golden" it really was. I'd always assumed that golden was a relative term, a way of contrasting it with the reign of terror that everyone focused on.

This book described it in exquisite detail for five entire chapters: reformation of criminals, prosperity, free trade with parts of the human world, even benign uses for the hippo monster, all watched over by someone who _actually cared _about his people. Pariah formed an almost democratic system, believing that a people who did not rule themselves would never be content. It was hard to believe that this was the same terrible, embittered monster who once attacked Amity Park.

I was gawking at a picture of the young Pariah, marveling at how _different_ he looked, when my cell phone rang.

Stupid thing nearly gave me heart failure.

Silently cursing the horrendous timing, I fumbled around my pockets until I found the beeping device. It was from FentonWorks.

"Hey, Mom."

Maddie cut straight to the point. "Where are you?"

I vaguely remembered lying about Sam's house, so I said, "After Sam and I were done studying, I went over to Tucker's place for help in another class. Where should I be?"

She sighed. "Danny, do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Uh…" I looked at the kitchen clock and was stunned to realize that it was almost midnight. "Whoa, that late already? Sorry, Mom, I'll get home ASAP."

"No, just stay with the Foleys. I don't want you getting attacked by ghosts on the way home."

"Hey, Tucker," I said, feeling slightly stupid for addressing an empty room, "d'you mind if I crash here for the night? Thanks." I turned back to the phone. "Tuck says it's fine."

"Wake up early so you can stop home before school tomorrow. Good night." She hung up.

I had to check on the baby before turning back to the face on the page. I bit my lip, hesitated. Then I said, very quietly, even though Box Lunch was the only one in the house and she couldn't understand me even if she was awake, "For me it was a test. The C.A.T. I cheated, my family died, and then I snapped.

"What was it for you?"


	4. An Artificial Infant

Like I said before, halfas don't need as much sleep as full-humans. That's why, even though Boxy and his bride didn't come back until three in the morning, I was able to get through school with minimum sleepiness. In fact, I was downright perky, excited and optimistic about finding the truth.

Then I saw Tucker.

My friend obviously hadn't gotten any sleep last night. His eyelids drooped. Huge dark circles took up several square inches on his face. His eyes were red-tinged with broken capillaries, and his entire face was lined with sleepy wrinkles that hadn't been there yesterday.

We didn't get a chance to talk before first period, but Sam and I managed to corner him immediately after the bell rang. "What's up, Tucker?" my girlfriend asked. "You don't look so good."

Tucker ignored her. He was looking at me with an expression I'd only seen once and never, _never _wanted to see again.

When I first transformed into Danny Phantom, we initially thought it was a fluke, something that would wear off over time. After all, I'd changed back within the first few minutes, right before we would have called an ambulance. By some unspoken consent, we pretended nothing ever happened.

The next day, my head went invisible in one of our conversations. I hadn't noticed. Sam and Tucker did, though, and Tuck looked at me with the exact same expression he wore that day in school.

"I found the project," he informed us. "Stayed up all night reading it." He yawned, jaw cracking. "It was… interesting."

For us, interesting was a loaded word. It could mean anything from "Lancer's lesson wasn't really interesting," to "Wow, Mom and Dad, what an interesting new ghost weapon! Can it really turn Phantom inside out?" I had the nasty feeling that this was the second kind of interesting.

"So interesting you stayed up all night to finish it?" Sam sounded as nervous as I felt.

"Yeah."

"So what's so interesting about it?"

For a second, I really thought that Tucker would tell us. Then he looked at me and that appalled, "how do I explain to my best friend that he _has no head_" expression and mumbled, "You guys have to see it to believe it. I don't believe it myself, and I'm the one who read it."

And he refused to say anything more.

Unpleasant scenarios ran through my mind, tripping over each other like clumsy track runners. What if they'd created an army of hostile ghosts that had escaped their clutches, retreated into the Ghost Zone, and begun to plan their conquest of the human world? What if they'd experimented on themselves and gotten a weird case of multiple personality disorder? What if they were really (I shuddered) Boxy and the Lunch Lady! I didn't mind Box Lunch, but if I was related to her parents, I would kill myself. Slowly and painfully. No, wait, that was impossible- I'd seen them around the two ghosts, and it probably wasn't duplication. Neither ghost was powerful enough. But what if they'd tried to separate their ghost and human halves and the humans had gone onto become my parents and the ghosts had become Boxy and his wife? Would I still have to slowly and painfully kill myself?

By the time school was over, I'd formed a mantra: "Not the Box Ghost. Not the Box Ghost. Please oh please not the Box Ghost…."

Sam and Tuck gave me some very strange looks on our flight to the Foley residence. "Don't ask," I ordered as we phased through the roof.

"I've put the relevant entries into a separate file," Tucker explained. "I considered e-mailing it to you, but even with my encryption that's too risky. I don't want this getting out to anyone we don't trust with our lives."

"Roger."

Sam and I curled up around the computer and began to read.

_August 22, 1991_

_We were approached by a man from the Guys in White today. He offered us fifty thousand dollars a year plus funding if we volunteered to carry out an experiment that the official agency doesn't have time for. Jack and I told him we'd consider it- after all, we do have Jazz to think about. _

"This is just a few months after Jazz was born," I murmured. "Cool, maybe I'll show up later."

"You do," Tucker replied. "Just keep reading."

_August 23, 1991 _

_We met with the agent again today to ask for details. He explained that we were to settle a longstanding issue among ghost hunters: How does ectoplasm renew itself? We know that it does due to the Reimann-Whitman experiment of '62, but neither scientist was able to discern how. They spent the remainder of their lives trying to replicate or artificially construct ectoplasm. We still need to think about it, though. The operative will come back in a few days to hear our final decision. Personally, I'm leaning towards a yes. _

_August 28, 1991 _

_Agent L stopped by for our ultimatum. Jack and I decided to accept the commission- we need the money, and the project itself sounds utterly fascinating- so he gave us the details over lunch. _

_The Guys in White have managed to acquire a sample of ectoplasm straight from the Ghost Zone. He refuses to say how they did so, but was willing to show us photographic evidence. However, they only possess so much ectoplasm. It doesn't renew itself, and they're running out of samples to use in experiments. They want us to invent a way to renew their supply. Jack asked what they'd used the rest of the sample for; Agent L said that it was classified. The shipment should arrive in about a week. Until then, we have to brainstorm. _

_I haven't been this excited since college, when Jack, Vlad, and I constructed our first proto-portal. I just hope that this project doesn't backfire! _

_September 2, 1991 _

_The ectoplasm arrived today, but Jack and I don't know what to do with it. We've been going over Reimann and Whitman's work to learn what DOESN'T work. Unfortunately, they tried out and disproved all of our ideas. _(Here the text meandered into a description of the other scientists' attempts at reproducing ectoplasm, very little of which I understood) _Still, we're very optimistic. We'll think of something. _

_September 7, 1991 _

_We were looking at the GiW's notes and observed something. This ectoplasm has _DNA _in it. _

_We always knew that ectoplasm was the basis for ghostly existence, but we assumed it was more analogous to carbon for humans. This implies that there are two basic subtypes of ectoplasm- a simple molecule (which Jack calls plasmic compounds) and ectoplasm proper, the material which acts as ghostly blood. _(She went into a lot more detail, but for space purposes I'll leave that out). _One last thing about ectoplasm proper: We observed that it contains twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, just like human cells. _

_September 9, 1991 _

_We finally thought of something! Ghost DNA has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. Human DNA has twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. It's so obvious that I'm amazed we didn't see it before! _

_Ghosts have the innate ability to create ectoplasm (both plasmic compounds and ectoplasm proper) in their bodies. Therefore, the best way to ensure a constant supply of ectoplasm is to have a ghost nearby. We briefly considered attempting to clone the ghost from the samples we have before I remembered that clones require a viable egg from a female of the species. We don't have one. We don't even know the ghost's gender, though our preliminary glances at its DNA seem to indicate that it is male. _

_Then I had an idea. We don't have an egg from a ghost female, but, with the new market for "test tube babies," there are several human eggs available. Assuming this ghost was human in life, which it seems to be due to the number of chromosomes, we should be able to separate its DNA and splice it into the human egg, thereby creating a half-ghost, half-human hybrid that we can harvest regularly for its ectoplasm. Even better, we'll have a test subject for everything we can think of. I'm already planning dozens of experiments! _

"Another halfa," I breathed. I love Danni, I love being a halfa, but it does get lonely sometimes.

I could see why Tucker spent the entire night with this.

Then my ghost sense went off. I stared stupidly at the frosty plume before groaning. "Be right back."

Somehow, a herd of slightly rabid woolly mammoths had escaped the Ghost Zone and were attempting to trample everyone at the mall. I yelled at them for a while before sucking them all into my beloved Fenton thermos. Yes, beloved. That thing has saved my butt on more than one occasion.

It took about an hour to round all the mammoths up, and by the time I got back to Tucker's house, Sam had finished reading. She looked at me with those gorgeous eyes of hers and said quietly, "Finish."

I was really beginning to get nervous.

_September 10, 1991 _

_We presented our proposal to the GiW today. They were very enthusiastic, even more than we were. They volunteered to track down an egg or two from a kinless, anonymous woman. Agent L thinks it will be here within the week. _

_He explained that though there were no legal issues with experimenting on the unborn or on ghosts, since they're dead anyways, but some people would take this the wrong way if it got out. All three of us took vows of secrecy. We won't tell anyone about this project until it's completed, not even Jazzy or Vlad. _

_Since I came up with the idea for the project, I decided to let Jack choose the name. He wants to call it the Artificial Natal Infant Ectoplasmic Life-form, or A.N.I.E.L. for short. "Jack," I said, "infant and natal mean the same thing. Why don't you take one of the words out?" _

_He just gave me that adorable puppy-dog stare of his, so we went to the dictionary. Technically, 'natal' refers to birth, not babies. It's also a city in Brazil. Still, I'm not sure I like the name. 'Infant' makes it sound like a human baby instead of an undeveloped monster. We didn't tell Agent L what the acronym stands for- I love my husband, but others would think he's stupid for putting natal and infant in the same name. _

The hairs on my neck stood up. A.N.I.E.L… aniel….

Keep reading, Fenton-Phantom. Your instincts might be wrong.

_October 31, 1991 _

_We injected the ectoplasm proper into two human eggs today. Jack insisted on staying up until midnight just in case the old legends are true and ghosts only conceive on Halloween. It's too soon to see if anything will happen. We're all holding our breath, even Jazzy- though, at one year old, she doesn't understand what's going on. _

_November 3, 1991 _

_I've been rereading old pregnancy texts, particularly sections about early cellular division. The projects have multiplied into blastocysts. It's truly fascinating to watch. _(stuff about how amazing this is)

_December 1, 1991 _

_Surprisingly, the A.N.I.E.L.s have developed hearts. They don't beat with the frequency of a human embryo's, but their cardiovascular systems' development is otherwise normal. I wish we could take samples, see what that heart is pumping through their veins, but they're still too vulnerable to destruction. We're out of ectoplasm. So are the GiW. If A.N.I.E.L. doesn't produce, it may be years before any paranormal scientists can experiment with ectoplasm again. We'll take samples as soon as possible. _

_January 5, 1992 _

_The A.N.I.E.L.s are still developing like normal human infants. They've just grown lungs and a rudimentary respiratory system. However, they also has some sort of ghost organ that doesn't appear in human anatomy. I wonder how much of their physique is due to its ghostly donor and how much will remain human? … _

_Agent L is beginning to get impatient. We tried explaining to him that the project is "due" in July, but he didn't listen. "We need more samples," he said. "Get some as soon as that thing is big enough." _

"_But what if it destroys the project?" I worried. _

"_Are you starting to care about two half-ghost freaks?" _

"_Of course not, but if it destabilizes there won't BE any more samples," I pointed out. _

_He went off to talk with his supervisors. If Jack and I haven't produced another sample by mid-March, he'll cut our funding. _

I was beginning to get nervous. I would be born in two months, March 21, but there had been no mention of a pregnancy. Don't worry, I told myself. A.N.I.E.L isn't due until July. Besides, there's two of them.

_January 10, 1992_

_We have to take a risk, one that will possibly destroy the project and all our future ectoplasm samples. Jack and I have added growth hormones to its into A.N.I.E.L.'s feed. If it works, as opposed to destroying everything we've worked so hard on, A.N.I.E.L. will be as mature as a newborn human by March. If it doesn't work, it will probably disintegrate and we'll lose our funding anyways._

_January 11, 1992_

_Jazz turned two today. We took the day off to celebrate. She made the most adorable wish: she wanted a little brother or sister for her birthday, and was honestly disappointed when one didn't appear from the woodwork. Jack and I explained that we're not interested in having another baby until after our big project is done, and even if we placed a mail order with the stork right now, it would still be months before the baby arrived._

I was shaking. Maddie should have been six months pregnant with me- I was a premie- but there was no mention of another Fenton child. Only A.N.I.E.L.

_February 17, 1992_

_One of the projects became unstable today. We were forced to terminate it. However, the other is still developing nicely._

_February 19, 1992_

_A.N.I.E.L. now has hair- not much, of course, as it's still very underdeveloped, but just enough that we can make out the color. I'm a bit disappointed, actually. We'd expected some obviously inhuman color like white or green, but its hair is as black as Jack's._

_February 20, 1992_

_We think that A.N.I.E.L. has reached the age of viability, but we're not sure. We'll keep it on growth hormones for another week or two so it will be ready in March. We're both afraid of what effects long-term exposure to these hormones could have on its ability to produce ectoplasm. After all, its 'sibling' fell apart._

_February 26, 1992_

_A.N.I.E.L. somersaulted today, which indicates that it's as developed as a human fetus six months and one week after its fertilization._

_March 2, 1992_

_We took A.N.I.E.L. off its hormones today. If it were human, it wouldn't be born for another two and one-half months. We're planning on taking it off the life support equipment on the twenty-first to take our first sample._

My jaw worked soundlessly. March 21, 1992 was my birthday. I would be born in nineteen days, and they still hadn't mentioned Maddie's pregnancy.

_March 21, 1992_

_We returned the life support equipment to the government today…._

_Agent L came over for the "birth." It really wasn't that dramatic. We just took A.N.I.E.L. out of its tube, put it into the little cage-crib Jack designed (it won't be able to phase through and escape) and took a blood sample. It cried at the sight of the needle, so Agent L forced its jaw shut. I was fascinated- everyone knows that ghosts can't feel emotion, so was the crying a strictly instinctive response, like the call system of chimpanzees? I'm so grateful that we can study it for years to come. We just have to make sure that the authorities don't suspect anything. A.N.I.E.L. looks deceptively human with its blue eyes and dark hair. It doesn't even glow!_ (There followed a description of A.N.I.E.L.'s vitals and an overdone speech by Agent L.)

I was trembling. They hadn't said one thing about the other dark-haired, blue-eyed baby who'd been born that day. The hated, creeping thought I'd been trying to fight off resurged with a vengeance.

Artificial Natal Infant Ectoplasmic Life-form… A.N.I.E.L….Daniel….

Danny.

* * *

Duh duh duh...

I figure, there are stories about Danny being adopted, but there aren't as many about him being an experiment. I figured, why not both

Some would say that Jack and Maddie are OOC in this. I argue that 1) they were younger, 2) they saw "the project" as a filthy vile ghost (we all know how they feel about specters), and 3) they were finally getting recognition from the big guys. Of course they don't care about "the project."

-Corona


	5. Human Mother, Ghost Father

I could not speak. I could not move. If a ghost attacked, if Pariah Dark himself appeared with his thrall army and pet monster, dragged us into the Ghost Zone, and took over the world, I wouldn't have been able to do anything but blink at him stupidly. I was literally paralyzed.

"Danny?" asked Tucker shyly. "Are you okay?"

His voice shocked me out of my paralysis. I took one look at the techno-geek, slammed the computer shut, and flew as fast and hard as I could. I didn't know where I was going, didn't care, I just needed to get away.

I was a _project,_ a thing, a failed experiment. My life was a lie. They'd never loved me, they weren't my parents (and a tiny burst of relief warmed my numb heart, I wasn't related to the ghost hunters who hated me), Jazz wasn't my sister. My real sibling had disintegrated before he or she was born.

Everything was a lie. I thought of the dream I'd had a few nights ago, the dream about needles and the Others. It wasn't a dream. It was a memory, buried so deep in my psyche that I hadn't recognized it.

I flew faster, legs fusing together, a black streak across the still-blue sky.

Other things made sense now, too, things I hadn't thought about in years. I'd called them "Jack" and "Maddie" as a very little child, before going into the special ed. program at Amity Elementary "We suspect that he has learning and personality disorders. Let us know if he shows any violent tendencies." Those were ghost-like characteristics, at least according to them- stupidity, sub-humanity, an obsessive desire to dominate and control. They'd been stunned when I'd grown into a happy, well-adjusted child, one with very few ghostly traits.

Or _had _I shown some? I'd always wanted to be an astronaut, to fly among the unknown. Heights didn't scare me; I'd once balanced on a fifteen-foot fence without any fear. I'd loved ghost stories, especially the forbidden tale of Caspar the Friendly Ghost. Were they just weird coincidences, or were they manifestations of my subdued blood?

Then there were my powers. We'd always attributed their rapid development and potency to the young age at which I'd stepped into the Fenton Portal, but if I'd always been half-ghost, they'd had years to develop in secret. Vlad had taken weeks to manifest a ghost body; I'd transformed immediately. It had been over a year before Plasmius could access even the most basic powers; I'd had flight, ghost sense, invisibility, and intangibility within twenty-four hours. Ecto-blasts and overshadowing had come soon after. We'd thought it was because I'd gotten a full body blast. Vlad had been hit in the face.

_Lies! _

I flipped over, screamed. The Ghostly Wail soared upwards, disintegrating a cloud. I screamed as long and loud as I could, not caring who heard or detected me. The clouds rippled, following the path of my sound waves.

And then I knew where I was going.

Hartford College was small but prestigious academy, often called "a latecomer to the Ivy League." Jazz, being the genius she was, had gotten in with a full ride scholarship. It was five hours from Amity Park by car, but my top speed was over two hundred mph. I circled for a while, not knowing what to say, not knowing how to explain, wondering how my sister-who-was-not-my-sister would react.

I flipped open my cell phone. "Tucker."

"You okay man?" He sounded frantic.

"Yeah," I lied dully. "I'm at Hartford. Could you e-mail Jazz the…"

He understood. "Yeah. I'll call the other Danni, tell her to get over there."

Yes, Danni had the right to know.

Jazz was in her dorm when I phased through the roof. She started. "Danny? What are you doing here?"

"Check your e-mail," I sighed. "But wait until the other Danni- whoa, that was fast." My twin had just become visible.

"Tucker sounded worried," she said, shifting into human form and shoving the Infi-map into her backpack. "What's wrong?"

Like my friends before me, I didn't try to explain. "Just read the e-mail."

They read.

For long minutes we stayed there, them staring at the computer screen, me shuffling my feet. How would they react? I wondered. I glanced up. Their expressions were slowly shifting from academic interest to horrified realization. Jazz gave me a wide-eyed, questioning look. I nodded. Her mouth formed a tiny o. She nodded back, then returned her attention to the screen.

Danni broke the stifling silence. "I thought that March twenty-first was your birthday?"

"It is."

"Oooohhh."

"Exactly."

She grinned sheepishly, tried to cheer me up. "Hey, now we can be experiment twins too."

Jazz burst out laughing. We glared. "It wasn't _that_ funny."

"No," she agreed. "It's just that I always thought I was the adopted kid, not you. Isn't it ironic?"

My twin (the one who hadn't disintegrated) and I glanced at each other. Her lips twitched. "It kind of is," I acknowledged. Then everyone was laughing.

Jazz recovered first. "So are you going to try to find them?" she asked.

"Wha?"

"Your- uh- biological parents. Yours and Danni's. Are you going to try and find them?"

My twin and I exchanged another set of glances. If Danni was the clone of an experiment (like I said earlier, our relationship is complicated), it was no wonder that she was originally so unstable.

Danni… besides me (and, we'd once thought, Jazz), she'd never known a biological family. Sure, she was part of my other family and had tons of friends from her travels, but I always felt guilty about not introducing her to Jack and Maddie Fenton, who were supposedly her parents too. Now, though, I had the opportunity to give her real parents, people who might look beyond her- _our_- hybrid freakishness and see the kids inside.

Unlike me, my twin didn't hesitate. "I'd love to," she breathed. Then she started plotting. "I'll bring Tucker to the Guys in White base- he can hack into their records, find out where the ectoplasm sample and our mother's DNA came from. Then-"

"Or we could just ask Clockwork," Jazz interjected.

Danni went red. "Or we could just ask Clockwork." She unfolded the Infi-map. "Hold on, guys. Clockwork's Tower."

Nothing happened.

"Clockwork's Tower!"

Jazz let go of the map. I flinched, half-expecting it to take off then and there. "Let me try something." She trotted over to her drawer, reached in, and-

Then her roommate showed up. Danni and I barely went invisible before she saw us. "Hey Jazz, guess what? Freddy broke up with Evangeline over Facebook, so Evie went and-"

"That's great!" my sister yelled. "I was just leaving, bye!" She tried to sidle out the door, but her roommate deterred her.

"Oooo, what's that you've got?" She grabbed Jazz's hand. My sister was holding a small, slender hourglass on a thin gold chain. "Is it from a boy?"

"Uh…"

"I _knew _it! I knew it knew it knew it _knew _it! Izze cute?"

"I really have to go now…."

The roommate winked conspiratorially. "Secret dates, huh? Like Romeo and Juliet, 'cept nobody dies and Juliet's parents never went after Romeo with a glorified baseball bat like yours did with your last boyfriend!"

"…Yeah. Sure. Why not."

"Awesome! Don't let your parents know, don't pretend to commit suicide, and if you need any condoms-"

Jazz fled. Danni and I held our laughter until we were out of earshot. "It's not funny," our sister snarled. "And we are _not_ telling Clockwork about this."

"You realize he probably already knows."

I have never seen anyone's face turn that shade of red. "_An-y-ways,_ you know how we frequently engage in intellectual discussions about things you two wouldn't understand?"

"You mean the 'secret dates'?"

The gritting of her teeth was audible. "Well, when I went off to college last year and no longer had access to the portal, he gave me this. It'll transport me to his tower whenever I want."

"Secret. Dates," I repeated.

"If we tie it around the Infi-map, we can probably all get there."

Jazz was right. It worked. One stomach-turning, hyper-speed, Infi-map-induced journey later, we stood in the entry hall of our friend's abode.

I smiled slightly, feeling at home for the first time in days. I'd had a room here since summer after freshman year, when he'd invited Danni and me over for five months (in the outside world, only a week passed. Time travel is awesome like that) filled with learning and adventure. If I have time, I'll tell you about it later, or maybe in another book.

Predictably, Clockwork was waiting for us. He was in his young-man form, smiling in that still-water-runs-deep way of his.

We exchanged those preliminary greetings required by social correctness before getting down to business. Jazz did the explaining- she was less affected than Danni and me. I stayed silent, listening listlessly. Maybe I was starting to digest the bizarre story of my past, but it had already moved from the realm of "this can't possibly be true" to the kingdom of accepted fact.

Then a beautiful, wonderful thought occurred to me. The ghost who'd "donated" had to be male- after all, the Y chromosome came from the father, and my human donor was female. Clockwork had always been fond of me, even defying the Observants to save my life. Maybe….

He answered an instant before I asked. "No, not I."

I slumped, tried to cover up my sudden depression. "I hate it when you do that. Y'know, that 'respond before I've even opened my mouth' thing. You need to develop your social skills, because the whole psychic act has got to be a major no-no."

"Don't worry. Your elder sister has dedicated countless hours to polishing my social skills."

"Oh. Well, good. You need it."

As usual, everyone ignored me. Clockwork met Danni's eyes. "Don't you find it a rather strange coincidence that Daniel had an unstable twin as an infant and another unstable twin as a young adult?"

Her eyes bugged out. Mine weren't much smaller. "Are you serious?"

He smiled. "Yes. Danielle was never a clone."

We cheered.

"That," Danni exulted, "is the best news I've heard in a long time. Thank you, Clockwork. I bet the Observants weren't very happy about that."

"Since when have I cared about their happiness?"

Everyone laughed. "Do you know who they are?" I asked.

"My official, government-sanctioned reply is that all three of you are the biological offspring of Jack and Maddie Fenton."

"And your unofficial, not-government-sanctioned reply is?"

He frowned, remained silent.

Jazz was stunned. "So the Observants consider this so important that they won't let you say _any_thing?"

He smiled slightly. "They have no writ in the human world, so I can speak of your mother and Danielle's birth. However, your father falls under their domain," he sounded very, very dry, like the Sahara Desert, "at least in a way, and I cannot tell you anything about him. Danielle's plan provides the start. Other than that, it's up to you." He gestured, and we followed him into his "office."

The viewing room was vast, cavernous, and covered in screens. (Tucker loves it here) Pictures flashed over the tech- bloody battles, men shaking hands, animals, ghosts flying, all sorts of things. Clockwork guided us to one of the larger screens. This one was motionless, a woman in her late teens or early twenties in a white hospital gown. Her expression was sad, thoughtful, and one hand rested on her belly.

It was the first time I'd ever seen my mother. Now, whenever I think of her, that image reappears in my mind.

She was beautiful. That was the first thing I noticed: clean, clear features, dark lustrous hair, large brown eyes. Her skin was darker than Danni's and mine- that made sense, since we were part ghost.

And she looked like us: same eye shape, same nose, same ears. Like Danni, she was feminine without being soft, and that strength made her all the more breathtaking.

Yes, I know I was gushing. But that doesn't make it any less true.

"Mom," whispered Danni, reaching out to brush against the screen. There was a tremble in her voice. I didn't blame her. I was shaking, too.

We were vaguely aware of Jazz mumbling something about "privacy" and dragging Clockwork away.

I don't know how long we spent watching scenes from our mother's life. It doesn't matter, anyway- in Clockwork's domain, time is meaningless.

Her name was Natalia Fenton. She was an only child, orphaned at an early age and shuffled from foster home to foster home. At eighteen, she won a full ride to Arizona State University, where she studied astronomy. I teared up at learning that- I'd always wanted to study the stars.

Even with the scholarship, Natalia- _Mom-_ worked dozens of part-time jobs. She didn't have much money, so she had to start saving ASAP. She cleaned houses, gyms, offices; served at three restaurants; filled out hundreds of surveys. That was why she'd donated eggs to Gift of Life, Inc., and why her face was so uncertain in the first picture. She didn't know if selling her DNA was the right thing to do.

Halfway through her sophomore year, Natalia converted to Christianity, changed her major to religious studies and communication, and began planning her career as a missionary. Gotta say, that was a plot twist I had _not_ expected. Anyways, when she graduated, she went off to the Middle East.

She was killed on November 22, 1994.

As a ghost hunter, I've had several serious injuries. I've been bludgeoned, sliced, burnt, punched, kicked, slapped, shot, impaled, thrown, and trampled. The shocked pain I felt on seeing her funeral hurt worse than all those things combined.

The images stopped. I stared at the blank screens, shoulders shaking, sniffling softly. Danni was crying quietly. "We never got to meet her," she whispered, then let out a sob and jumped into my arms. "And 'cuz of her religion, she can't've become a ghost…. She's in Heaven, we'll never meet our mom…."

"I know. Ring and Crown, Danni, I know."

We stood there for a long time. Finally she met my gaze. "But there's still our father."

"Yeah."

Silence. Then, "I'm going to find him."

"Good." We didn't state the obvious- that there were millions, billions of men in the Ghost Zone. We _would_ find him.

We exhaled simultaneously, blinking in surprise as our ghost senses went off. Clockwork normally kept his shields at full strength, so the fact we could detect his presence was only a courtesy. We turned, half-expecting to be kicked out.

Clockwork's expression was even less emotional than normal. "I cannot say who your father is," he articulated carefully, choosing every word with care. "However…. Danielle has never met him."

Jazz glared. Clockwork frowned at her. "The answer is in twenty."

She kept glaring. He ignored her. "Good bye." He created a portal.

We dropped our sister off at college before using the Infi-map to fly home. Danni hugged me again. "Thanks." She broke off, eyes alight with mischief. "Did you notice he was in young-man form the entire time?"

I blinked. "Huh. Weird. I wonder why he did that." Clockwork _could_ stay in one form, but it was extremely uncomfortable for him.

My twin rolled her eyes. "_Honestly,_ Danny. I love you, but you are _such _a boy sometimes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She ignored me. "I have to get back to Angola. Can you and the others draft a break-in plan?"

I sighed. She was in her close-mouthed mood again. "Sure. We'll have the info by Saturday, and then we can go meet our father."

* * *

I love Jazz's roommate. I have to figure out some way to incorporate her again.

Is the whole Danni subplot getting too complicated and weird for you? If it is, I'm really sorry. I was originally going to have her just be a clone, but then she gave me the puppy-dog eyes and I felt so bad that I changed that. But I figure, since Danny's past is based on a lie that covers up a huge conspiracy (not to mention the Observants' involvement), the story kind of has to be complicated.

Any guesses on the father's identity? I feel like it's obvious, but that's only because I already know.

You have been challenged.

-Corona


	6. Adoption

Even (or maybe especially) after visiting Clockwork, I still had a lot of questions. Seriously, though, can you blame me? I'd just had the shock of my half-life, for crying out loud!

"You okay, man?" asked Tucker gently, placing one hand on my shoulder.

I shrugged. "Don't know. Can I stay over here tonight?"

He'd obviously been expecting that. "Yeah. I already called your- uh, the Fentons. Said we had a project due Friday that we really needed to work on. They didn't ask any questions."

That brought me back to another unpleasant thought. _Had_ they ever loved me?

A few seconds of thinking about it led to the conclusion that yes, they did. After all, they'd forgotten- completely and totally forgotten- about the project until I'd accidently brought it up. And when I was a kid (after they realized I didn't have any so-called "ghostly" violent tendencies) they'd done all the standard parent-child bonding things associated with middle-class America. They'd treated me like Jazz, and I knew beyond a doubt that they loved her.

That was a relief.

"Earth to Danny," Sam droned, waving her hand in front of my face. I blinked, snapping out of my reverie. "You okay there?"

"Yeah," I mumbled, blushing. "Sorry, guys, I was just thinking." I didn't tell them what I'd been thinking about, but it didn't matter. I think they already knew. "What did you say?"

"I was asking if you were gonna try to find out who your real parents are," she repeated. "And if you are, I want to know how I can help."

I smiled. Natalia's face bloomed in my mind. "Well, after I went to see Jazz, she and Danni and I went to visit Clockwork, and he told us all about our- not's Jazz's, mine and Danni's- mother. Her name was Natalia Fenton."

Tucker's eyebrows climbed. "Fenton?" he echoed incredulously. "Wait, is she related to Jack or something?"

"I have no idea," I admitted. "Probably not, though- 'Fenton' is a pretty common last name, and she was an orphan."

Sam frowned. "You said 'was'?"

My gaze dropped to the floor. "She died in ninety-four, and she was Christian. She didn't manifest as a ghost, so unless Clockwork lets me play in the timestream again- not likely, especially after the Diet Cola Incident- we'll never get to meet her."

Sam hugged me, soft and warm and comforting. I hugged her back- I needed comfort. "What about your father?"

I slipped out of her arms, sighing. "Apparently the Observants don't want me to know."

"_What?"_ My girlfriend's face was livid. "They can't possibly have _any right-"_

"So it's obviously someone important," Tucker concluded, nipping Sam's tantrum in the bud. His face lit up. "Hey, maybe it's Clockwork!"

I shook my head, blushing. "He said that it was someone Danni-with-an-i has never met. Besides, I, um kinda asked him. Actually, I was about to ask him when he looked into the future and answered me before I could humiliate myself. Then we started talking about his lousy social skills." I frowned, realizing that this entire narrative probably wasn't making much sense to my loyal friends. "Let me tell the entire story…."

They listened eagerly, laughing at Jazz's roommate, cheering at the story of Danni's rescue, patting my back when I learned about Natalia. When I concluded, Tucker commented, "You should change the names and turn this into a sci-fi novel."

I laughed.

Sam frowned thoughtfully, one finger on her chin. "So what happened to your powers?" she wondered. "I mean, there's no way your ghost DNA just vanished for fourteen years." We turned towards Tucker.

The techno-geek shrugged helplessly. "I don't know," he confessed. "I was so freaked out by learning about Danny that I barely read anything past his birthday."

I thought of Box Lunch. "Part of the reason might be that ghost babies don't develop their powers right away," I said slowly. "In fact, ghost kids are a lot more similar to humans- sleep cycles, needing solid food, and stuff like that. It's only when they get older that their powers and more ghostly attributes develop. Maybe since I'm half-human, I was totally normal as a baby?"

"But that doesn't explain your DNA," Sam pointed out. "They had to have tested you- they created you to harvest ectoplasm, for Pete's sake!" It was quite, quite clear what she thought of _that._ "So what made you human?"

"…I suspect we would need a PhD in halfa biology to understand that, but hey. Maybe our pitiful human and half-human minds will be able to comprehend it."

"Good point." Tucker grimaced. Ghost bio was complicated, human anatomy was worse, and halfas trumped them both. It made me really popular with the doctors in the Far Frozen.

We spent the next few hours trudging through complicated scientific jargon and insanely detailed accounts of my infancy. Apparently, Project A.N.I.E.L. had been weighed every day. Blood samples were taken every two days, and they had done all sorts of tests. I shuddered, remembering my nightmare and wondering how much of that was real.

For brevity's sake, I'll spare you the details. Some of the more important entries went like this:

_April 8, 1992 _

_Agent L contacted us today about A.N.I.E.L.'s blood sample. He claims that the GiW couldn't detect any ectoplasm and accused us of perpetuating a hoax for funding. To prove him wrong, we let him take today's sample. _

_April 22, 1992 _

_All the samples we've sent in have been rejected. Jack and I speculate that this is because the GiW are looking for plasmic compounds, which the project is evidently too young to produce. Agent L confirmed that when they observed its DNA under an electron microscope, it did have inhuman DNA- ectoplasm proper. The GiW will just have to wait. _

_June 9, 1992 _

_Agent L stopped by again today, and I've never seen him so frightened. He tried not to show it, but he was obviously terrified. And I don't blame him at all. _

_The GiW have been analyzing A.N.I.E.L.'s DNA for quite some time now, hoping to find a way to change it into plasmic compounds. However, its chromosomes are changing in such a way that soon, we won't be able to extract any ectoplasm from its blood. _

_It's becoming human. _

_No one knows how, but over the past two weeks, A.N.I.E.L.'s human DNA has been replacing the ghost blood. They estimate that at this rate, it- he- will be completely human within the week. _

_That, of course, raises too many complicated questions. Even if its DNA becomes fully human, A.N.I.E.L. will still be half-ghost. Like all ghosts, itwill be obsessive and destructive, bent on dominating its peers. It will grow into a mentally retarded adult, dependent on society until he dies. _

_On the other hand, he will be half-human, and his DNA will be fully human. We cannot condone the murder of a human child. _

"Well that's nice to know," snarled Sam. "They can experiment on a little kid if he's half-ghost, but they 'cannot condone the murder of a human child.'" She grit her teeth.

"What did you expect? They see things in black and white, human and ghost."

"That doesn't make it right."

"I never _said_ that makes it right. It doesn't. But that's the way they think, and considering the circumstances, I'm actually glad. If they'd seen the world in shades of gray, they'd have eliminated Project A.N.I.E.L., and I kind of like existing."

"Good point," she admitted, "but that doesn't make it _right."_

"That's what I _said. _Can we go back to reading now?"

_June 13, 1992 _

_A.N.I.E.L. became human today. The GiW have washed their hands of him. They say that since we were the ones to create him, we should take care of him. I don't think they actually want us to _take care of _him, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. _

_We have a plan, though. There's a place out east called Amity Park, a nice little town that sits on a dimensional rift. No one knows us there, so we'll be able to pass A.N.I.E.L. off as our own son. It's rather unsavory, but we can hardly throw a half-ghost mini-monster into the foster care system. This way, if he ever shows any sign of its ghostly heritage, we'll be there to prevent things from escalating. _

_June 14, 1992 _

_We introduced Jazz to A.N.I.E.L. today, telling her that he was her new baby brother. She accepted him immediately, of course- he has black hair like Jack, and she doesn't know where babies come from yet. Even if she did suspect something was wrong with him, she wants a sibling so badly that she probably wouldn't care. _

_Of course, introducing a "baby brother" to an overly curious two-year-old created even more problems. The first thing she did was ask his name, and we couldn't exactly introduce him as the Artificial Natal Infant Ectoplasmic Life-form now, could we? So we improvised and told her his name was Daniel. She thinks that's a boring name and insists on calling him Danny. _

After that, the journal entries became more sporadic. By the time I was seven, they'd gone from scientific records to a diary. By the time I was eight, they had stopped completely.

"That's it?" demanded Tucker, indignant. "They never find out why you randomly turned human? How stupid is that?"

Images swam through my mind: Danielle, younger and afraid; a chamber with two pods and a duplicate I hadn't created. One phrase stuck out: _mid-morph DNA. _

According to Plasmius, who knew much more about genetics than any of us, halfas had mid-morph DNA. That implied that we have three kinds of DNA: human, ghost, and mid-morph.

None of their journal entries had mentioned my ghost form, which meant I'd stayed in human form for a long time. So… that meant my human DNA had been dominant, right? And if my human DNA had been dominant, the ghost DNA had vanished, because that's what happens when halfas are in human form. And when we transform, our DNA flip-flops, turns inside out.

Well, it made sense to me.

It took a while to explain my theory to Sam and Tucker, but they thought it was a good one. I was kind of proud of myself- it wasn't often that I made significant contributions to science. Of course, this _was _halfa-ology, and I was kind of an expert on that….

We emailed the relevant files to Jazz- she would probably like to look through the entire thing, but that could wait- and then it was time for Sam to go home. She'd stayed later than we anticipated, so it was almost ten-thirty. Her curfew's at ten, but she doesn't really care. I dropped her off before starting on patrol.

Three ghost fights and one foray with the Red Huntress later, I flew back to Tucker's place for bed. After all, even half-ghost superheroes need to sleep sometime. (I'm fairly certain we've already been over this.)

My dream… well… seriously, though, can you blame me? I'd just had the shock of my half-life!

_I sat in the family room with my dad, stepmother, sister, and half-sister, frowning pensively at a hand of cards: the ace of spades, the four of clubs, six of hearts, ten of hearts, queen of clubs. My brow furrowed in concentration. _

"_Hurry, brother!" demanded my half-sister. "I, Box Lunch, daughter of the Box Ghost and Lunch Lady, am growing impatient!" She smiled sweetly. "Cookie?" _

"_I, Danny Phantom, son of the almighty BOX GHOST-" _

But I never learned what my dream-self would say, because that was when I woke up screaming.

Of course, that woke up Tucker and his parents, and I had to make up some bogus nightmare about Sam breaking up with me to make them leave me alone. Tuck, though, wasn't fooled, and I was forced to explain my horrible dream to him.

"…Dude, that's probably the only time old Boxy gave anybody nightmares."

I shuddered. "Has Danni ever met the Box Ghost?"

Speak of the devil and the devil will arrive.

My ghost sense went off in a plume of blue, followed shortly by the man himself. "Did someone call for the almighty BOX GHOST?"

Normally, I would have sucked him into the Fenton thermos without a second thought, but today (tonight, whatever) I hesitated. If I was (shudder) related to this guy- which wasn't flaming likely, though neither was the whole Project A.N.I.E.L. thing- I would kill myself. Slowly and painfully.

I really didn't want to be related to him.

"Have you ever met my sister Danni?"

Tucker choked. "You _can't _be serious."

I shrugged, embarrassed. "Better safe than sorry."

"Yes, I have battled the she-halfa," Boxy declared, puffing out his chest. "Long indeed was our fight, and many were her injuries, and-"

"Okay, good. Night." I sucked him into the thermos, smiling. We were not related.

_Hallelujah_.

* * *

Sorry, Boxy fans. It's just not gonna happen. Good thing Danni didn't hear him call her the she-halfa.

So we have a possible explanation for Danny's childhood, but how accurate is it? Personally, I think it's a pretty good one.

Up next: the list, alien ghosts, and a vat of boiling ectoplasm.

-Corona


	7. Blood of the Father

Flying is easily my favorite ghost power. It never failed to cheer me up, calm my thoughts, make everything make sense. That night, I really needed that.

When I came back to Tucker's house, he was sleeping, and I was a lot more rational. I was also a lot more determined to learn the truth.

There were two and one-half ghosts that I knew for sure weren't my father: Boxy, Clockwork, and Plasmius. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

I grabbed a notebook out of my backpack and began listing every single male ghost I'd ever met, minus those two and one-half. Skulker, Technus, Bertrand, Poindexter, Vortex, Undergrowth, Amorpho, Nocturne, the Dairy King, Fright Knight, Klemper, Ghost Writer, Walker, Prince Aragon, assorted Observants, assorted yetis, assorted salamanders, random knights from Dora's kingdom, random warriors from Pandora's kingdom…. The list went on and on.

Time for the process of elimination. I tapped my pencil against the paper, thinking. Skulker… that would certainly lend an _interesting _flavor to our weekly meetings. Maybe if we were related, he'd quit hunting me? I considered it for a moment, then shook my head. Not worth it.

But back on topic, he didn't look anything like me. Beneath his suit, he was a nine-inch-high blob.

Wait. Unlike Skulker, I was half-human. Maybe my human blood kept me from looking like my ghost father? So if my father was really inhuman-looking, I wouldn't resemble him because I was a halfa?

Then how the heck was I supposed to figure this out!

Okay, Fenton-Phantom, think. You obviously didn't inherit your ghost powers from Natalia. Therefore, you must have gotten at least some from your dad. I made a new list, a list of my powers. Ghost sense, flight, invisibility, intangibility, duplication, overshadowing, ecto-blasts, ice, fire, lightning, wind, the Ghostly Wail, teleportation, telekinesis, shape-shifting, gift of tongues, creating portals….

Five of those were common to pretty much everyone in the Ghost Zone, so I ignored them. No one else, save Dan and Danni, had the Ghostly Wail. My ghost sense was just another facet of my ice powers. Telekinesis, teleportation, and duplication were actually fairly common, though other ghosts' telekinesis was limited to a specific kind of object (tech for Technus, boxes for Boxy, etc.). So my unique-but-not-unheard-of powers were ice, fire, lightning, wind, shape-shifting, gift of tongues, and creating portals.

Obviously, the yetis had ice powers, but none of them had fire powers. In the same way, salamanders had fire powers but now ice powers. That probably meant I wasn't related to any of them. The only other ice elemental I could think of was Klemper. It would be just like him to give some random government agent an ectoplasm sample to initiate a friendship.

I shuddered.

Lightning and wind were some of Vortex's gifts. I frowned, remembering how we'd first met. I'd had power over all kinds of weather then. I put a little star by Vortex's name, grimaced, sighed, and added another star to Klemper's.

Two ghosts on my list had shape-shifting powers- Bertrand and Amorpho. Two more stars went on the list.

Creating portals was a dead end. None of these ghosts had that power. Wulf did, but Danni knew him.

The good news? We _probably_ weren't related to Technus, Walker, or an Observant. The bad news? We might be the unholy spawn of Klemper or Vortex.

Joy.

* * *

The Guys in White had built their Amity Park base two years ago, right around Pariah Dark's invasion. Since then, we'd busted into their lair five times. Despite what Danni (who had never done it) thought, it really wasn't very difficult. In fact, it was rather like breaking into FentonWorks.

A random goon was wandering through the halls. I overshadowed him, then directed his bulky body to the entry hall, where Tucker was talking at the secretary. "You! Kid! What're you doing?" I bellowed.

Our eyes met. Mine flashed green. Tuck grinned. "The aliens are coming!" he proclaimed theatrically. "They're coming! And then they're going to steal our meat. We have to stop them."

Sometimes, I really worry about him.

"We're ghost hunters, kid! We don't worry about aliens."

"But they're GHOST aliens!"

"Well why didn't you say so? Come with me, kid."

"Ghost aliens," muttered the disgusted secretary. I snickered. Wonder how she'd react to the Observants?

It was pathetically easy, really, once I'd gotten Tucker past security. He simply plopped down, plugged in his infamous PDA, and started typing. I waited. The PDA beeped. "Done."

We walked back to the lobby, where I picked him up by the scruff of the neck, threw him out, and roared, "Next time, bring proof!"

"But the _aliens-_"

"Proof!" I floated out of the agent's body.

Fortunately, the government's database was rather more organized than my foster-parents'. All Tucker had to do was type in "Ghost Zone," set the date parameters to before August 1991, and click Go.

There was a bunch of theoretical stuff, which we largely ignored. We dredged through the files for almost an hour before finding a stupidly encrypted file entitled "Expedition 1989."

"Think that's it?" wondered Sam.

"Yes I do." By now I was getting jittery. Tucker could hack that file in just a few minutes. I was _just a few minutes_ away from learning my true father's name. Please don't be Klemper….

"And we're in!" Tucker gloated. "Take that, you overpaid government tech-slaves! I win!"

Sam and I rolled our eyes. "How about we let Danny read this first?" Sam suggested. Tucker blinked at her, so she elaborated. "It is _his _father. I kind of think he should be alone." She paused. "It's too bad the other Danni couldn't make it. She should see this."

"Fine," the techno-geek sulked.

My hands trembled as I approached the computer. Please oh please don't be Klemper; I'd even accept an Observant or Vortex or someone else I don't like, but please not Klemper. Please oh please oh _please…._

_The aberration is still present. We've quarantined the area, but Operative Q caught some cameramen trying to get past the police lines. They're in custody now. _

_The Head has come to inspect it personally. Like the rest of us, he believes that it is a natural portal into the Ghost Zone. However, unlike the rest of us, he knows how to proceed. He immediately summoned the disgraced Corporal C-29. He said that there is only one way that she could become a full agent: she had to go inside the Ghost Zone to explore it. C-29 asked for time to prepare and vowed to return tomorrow with supplies. _

It started ranting about what Corporal C-29 had done to make the GiW Head so angry at her. I ignored it, scrolling down until they finally got to the point. It took a while.

_C-29 came equipped with a radiation suit, a large syringe for taking samples, several weapons (no one knows where she acquired them; the Head threatened to charge her with theft if she wasn't successful), a camera, and a long, thick rope. She tied one end of the rope around her waist and handed the other end to a nearby operative. Then she entered the portal. _

_The Corporal did not return for several hours. When she finally did come back into the human world, this is what she told us. _There was a button beneath. I clicked it, and a woman's voice began speaking. Sam and Tucker edged over to the corner, pretending they weren't hanging on her every word.

"The first thing I noticed was that it was a lot darker than the human realm. I started wondering if ghosts had time zones, then my eyes adjusted and I realized I was inside this huge hallway. It didn't have any windows, and it was a lot more dimly lit than anyplace back home, so I thought that either ghosts have really good night vision- I couldn't see very well, even when my eyes were fully adjusted- or nobody was home.

"Since I had no idea what else to do, I went straight. Really wished I'd brought a flashlight, but it was probably good that I didn't because if I had, I'd've turned it on and the ghosts might have found me. It was a pretty barren place: nothing on the walls, or floor, just bare stone. Still, I wasn't surprised. It's not like ghosts are advanced enough to appreciate art.

"There were some doors, but only on the right side of the hall- I mean the right side as I was going in, not the right side as I was coming back. They were all locked, though, and I didn't want to, like, try and ram them down. I went over to the other side, and it turns out there were arrow slits in the wall." She paused. "Actually, they were probably ecto-blast slits.

"The walls curved a bit, so little that I didn't notice for a while. Then I realized that I was in a circular building. The outer walls led outside, but the inner walls led to other parts of the weirdo building. It was pretty big, too, but nothing was there. At least, nothing that I could see. They might've been watching me invisibly.

"Eventually I noticed that one of the doors was ajar. By then I'd been wandering for maybe half an hour, forty minutes or something. I was really starting to get sick of this, so I went inside. The door led to a really big room. It was even darker than the hall, but I could see that something was glowing a few feet away. I went over, and you'll never believe what it was." She paused again.

"Get on with it, Corporal," growled a male voice.

"Yes, sir," she mumbled, chagrined. "It was a giant vat of- of something that I think might be ectoplasm, or at least have ectoplasm in it! Whatever it was, it was green-tinted and glowing. They'd put it on some kind of lightless heat source, I think, because it was hotter near the vat than everywhere else and the ectoplasm was simmering, just slowly bubbling.

"I had absolutely no idea why it was there or why they'd made some kind of ectoplasm soup, but I wasn't going to question my luck. So I dunked my syringe into the vat and high-tailed it."

The unnamed man (maybe he was the Head?) started quizzing her for more details. How high were the walls? How far had she walked before coming to the open door? Why hadn't she taken any pictures- she HAD a camera, didn't she? How big was the room? How many arrow slits were there? Had she heard anything? Smelled? Tasted? Touched?

The corporal answered as best she could, but it was obvious her superior wasn't satisfied. When the computer grew silent, C-29 was almost in tears.

"That's it?" I howled. "That can't be it!" Furious, I clicked on the recording again.

"The first thing I noticed was that it was a lot darker than the human realm. I started won-"

"No! Fast forward or something. Tell me who he is!" I wanted nothing more than to blast the infernal machine into a million tiny pieces.

"Chill, man!" yelled Tucker. "Hurting my baby won't do anything!"

"Your _baby?_"

"Yes. My baby."

I slumped. "Sorry, Tuck. It's just… I got my hopes up, and now this big amazing lead is a bust. Why would anyone boil their ectoplasm in a giant vat in some ginormous abandoned building? No, wait, I know the answer. He was probably building something really powerful."

When a ghost wants to create an item of power (i.e., one of Clockwork's Time Medallions), he or she will often mix base materials with his or her own blood to imbibe it with the correct metaphysical properties. With the Time Medallions, Clockwork coated the metal with a mix of ichor and water from the Rivers Styx and Lethe. We knew something new about my father- he was a crafter- but we had no way of finding his name. In other words, we were back to square one.

Even worse, natural portals could open anywhere and any_when. _For all I knew, this hadn't even happened yet.

Sam chewed her lip. "Well, Clockwork mentioned that other-Danni's bust-into-the-base idea was a good one, so we're probably on the right track."

"But what are we supposed to _do_? I was expecting a description, maybe a name or something. How am I supposed to track down the guy who was crafting whatever it was he was crafting? I can't just go up to Vortex and say, 'Hey, excuse me, but have you ever built something of your own ectoplasm?' Not to mention I'd need an excuse for asking him, and I really don't want anyone outside the family to know about this, at least not until I know for sure."

Tucker scrolled through the file. "Nothing," he sighed. "Oh, wait- scratch that! It turns out that the ectoplasm only consisted of three percent of the total sample." His face scrunched up. "That means he's powerful, right?"

"Yeah. Any ghost who can create something in a three percent mixture is pretty tough." In other words, it could not possibly be Klemper. At least _something _good came out of this.

The only thing we could do was get out my list. We were left with Vortex, Undergrowth, Nocturne, Fright Knight, Prince Aragon, an Observant, and a couple of Dora's tougher knights. Vortex's name was the only one with a star.

"So… should I hunt down Vortex and ask?" I hoped not. We didn't like each other, but he was the only one who shared at least some of my powers. That made him the most likely candidate.

"Isn't he in prison?"

"Good point." Just what I always wanted- a crazy locked-up father. "Funnily enough, I'm not too enthusiastic about any of these choices."

Sam patted my back. "Maybe you've forgotten someone?"

"Maybe." I didn't believe her, and she knew it. "I'll show Danni the list, see if she's met anyone."

Sam kissed my cheek. "Don't worry, Danny. We'll find him."

"Yeah."

I still didn't believe her.

* * *

Not all ghost objects are made of blood (that would be creepy). However, the most powerful ones, the ones keyed to a specific person, were exposed to ghost blood during their construction.

Styx and Lethe: two rivers in the Greek Underworld. Styx was the river of hate which formed the borders, and Lethe was the river of forgetfulness. The other three rivers were Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Acheron.

Salamander: fire elementals from the Burning Lands. They look like large, scaled humans with fire-colored scales (blue, gold, orange, and/or red), spiky tails, and fire for hair. They are ruled by Pyrrha, Frostbite's fiancée.

Thrall (mentioned in chapter 3): skeleton-ghosts of the type in Pariah's army. Thralls are literally mindless and soulless, and most ghosts try to avoid them.

The long-awaited name shall be revealed next chapter. Until then, keep guessing.


	8. Unwanted Heritage

The next few days were utterly miserable. Each night, I'd revisit the cage and the Others before waking up in a cold sweat. At breakfast I'd force down my cereal and sneak glances at my foster mother, wondering how I'd never noticed any of this before. Then it was off to school, which was miserable enough already.

Perhaps it was hypocritical of me to whine that they'd never told me I was half-ghost. After all, I hadn't told them about being Phantom. Still, the thought that our entire relationship, even before Phantom came around (no, I was always Phantom, the portal accident just woke up my powers), was nothing but a blatant lie was very depressing.

School dragged on for hours. I was slow and listless, paying even less attention than usual in class. Ghost fights lasted longer than usual. Whenever I saw a male ghost, I pulled up short, thinking of my unknown father (Vortex? Nocturne?). They took advantage of that, of course, shooting me and slicing me more than they had in years.

Tucker counted the ghosts I fought. He believed that Clockwork's whole "the answer lies in twenty" spiel meant that the twentieth ghost I fought would be my father. Guess who number twenty was? Desiree. A woman. And I definitely wasn't stupid enough to wish I knew who he was.

Finally, on Monday (which is a miserable day anyways), I caved and went to Clockwork. Our conversation went something like this.

ME: Please please please tell me who my father is?

CW: No.

ME: Please?

CW: I've given you too many hints already. Relax. You're smart enough to figure it out.

ME: No I'm not. Have you seen my grades? I get Cs, Bs if I'm lucky. Plus there was no description of a ghost, just a giant bubbling vat of goo. How am I supposed to find a person from a giant bubbling vat of goo?

CW: I've already _given _you enough information.

ME: I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to say. What's with the emphasis on given?

OBSERVANT (after floating in from who-knows-where): CLOCKWORK! What are you doing?

HIM: Speaking with my ward. You should know that- you were the ones who gave him to me. Besides, I haven't said anything to him.

OBSERVANT: I don't trust you. (glares at both of us) Go away.

CW: This is my domicile.

OBSERVANT: Not _you, him_! (points at me)

CW (rolling eyes): Go home, Danny. Try to take your mind off things. Relax, watch TV, surf the internet, read a book-

OBSERVANT: CLOCKWORK!

CW: Did I say anything?

So when I got home, I took his advice literally and plopped down in front of the idiot box. After channel surfing for a while, I found this really neat documentary on the History Channel (What? I like history. Besides, I am under strict orders to do well in that class so I don't humiliate Clockwork). Then Technus came in and tried to kill me with our electrical system. The resulting battle completely destroyed the TV, so I retreated into my room for homework and the Internet.

Ghosts have Internet too. I knew how to access it from the mortal 'net (it involves hidden passwords, Google Images, and ecto-signatures), so I looked up everyone on my list. It didn't tell me much: Vortex was in prison for terrorizing the human realm, Undergrowth was running a nature preserve near Dora's kingdom, Nocturne was offering sleep therapy…. Nothing indicated which of these ghosts had two half-human children.

Sleep brought the same old dream again: me in the cage while the Others pumped me full of chemicals. This time, though, we had an audience. All the ghosts on my list floated in the shadows, watching dispassionately as I begged them for help.

I woke up cursing. I was used to nightmares- between the accident, my ghost-hunting foster parents, Dan, how Danni had almost melted, and other things, I had loads of them. That didn't make them any easier to deal with.

I pondered going back to sleep before deciding the dreams weren't worth it. I went ghost, flew out the window on patrol.

Two ghost fights later (always a great stress reliever), I came back. It was getting lighter out, and the first hints of dawn were on the horizon. I squinted; Mercury and Venus were visible, though the smaller planet was fading fast. My thoughts drifted back to the project and my past, but the early morning was so peaceful that I shoved those thoughts out of my head. Clockwork had told me to relax.

Should I play video games? No. They were distracting, but it seemed obscene to turn on a computer before the sun was up. TV? Same problem. Homework? No, I'd finished it. So I grabbed _Reign of King _and flopped onto my bed.

I was nearing the book's end. Where the first few chapters had been filled with the Golden Age, the later installments were filled with blood and battle. The writer didn't cover all the battles like some other authors did. Instead, he put a complete list in the appendix and focused on the ten most famous and important fights. I was on the second-to-last of these, the Battle of Mal'observem'ul'a, when Pariah's armies had attacked the Observants' stronghold.

I read, thrilled, all about what many called the turning point of the war. I'd read about it before, of course, but it had never been so vivid or _real_. I could almost see the rampaging thralls, smell the fire, hear the Observants' furious rallying call. I saw everyone, every last individual in the stronghold, abandon the safety of their fortress and come out to defend their home. Even when the thralls had been driven back, the people didn't return. Civilians, warriors, Observants, Ancients- all kept pushing their enemies into retreat. They didn't stop until the thrall army was five whole miles from the city walls.

_However, once the victorious troops returned, they discovered an odd theft. Few people knew of it until the battle was done, but some unknown individual had breached the Council Chamber itself and escaped with part of the solution which would soon form the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. _

_Naturally, the Observants were extremely distressed. Their project was a state secret, known only to the High Council itself. Not even their most trusted advisors knew what they were creating with the solution (15% water from each of the Five Rivers, 3% Pariah's blood, gathered from various excursions, 22% other powerful materials), only that it was the key to winning the war. _

Normally, I'd've totally ignored the statistics and gone on reading. That night, though, I froze. Tucker's voice echoed through my head: _"It turns out that the ectoplasm only consisted of three percent of the total sample."_

That was… kind of unsettling.

My eyes squeezed shut for a few seconds before I glanced nervously at the page's margins. _Chapter 20: The Battle of Ma'observem'ul'a._

_The answer lies in twenty. _

"Please be a coincidence."

But I had a sinking feeling in the deepest pit of my stomach that it wasn't.

Danni hadn't met our father. Danni hadn't met Pariah. Clockwork had implied that I'd met our father. I'd certainly met Pariah- shoving him back into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep had to count as a meeting.

No. You still have no proof. It might still be a coincidence.

Corporal C-29's description. I went over to the computer, onto the ghosts' Internet. One image search later, I had the floor plans for the Observants' headquarters. It was essentially an enormous dome, kind of like an observatory but bigger. _The walls curved a bit, so little that I didn't notice for a while. Then I realized that I was in a circular building_. A footnote said that during the war, it hadn't had any windows, just slits. …_there were arrow slits in the wall. Actually, they were probably ecto-blast slits._

It could still be a coincidence. Pariah Dark was bound thousands of years ago. They got my father's ectoplasm in 1989.

But natural portals weren't just rips in space, but in time as well. It would have been easy for C-29 to go back in time without realizing it, back to the Battle of Ma'observem'ul'a, when all the ghosts were outside battling thralls (…_nobody was home… nothing was there_) without realizing just how far she'd gone.

Think, Fenton-Phantom. There has to be some way out of this. There has to be. There's no possible way that Pariah Dark is-

Reason one: This isn't _Star Wars. _Stuff like evil-overlord-"Luke I am your father"/good guy-Chosen One destined to overthrow aforementioned evil overlord does not happen in real life. But then, neither do things like time-traveling half-ghosts who were created to be ectoplasm farms by their so-called loving parents. Or time-travelling half-ghost clones of aforementioned ectoplasm farm. Or condiment-induced apocalypses. Unfortunately, all those things had happened (or almost happened). So reason one doesn't exactly withstand close scrutiny.

Reason two: We don't look anything like him. Pariah is huge and bulky. I'm small (well, smaller- the dude was like fifty feet tall!) and lithe. See? Problem solved.

Then I remembered what I'd already decided about appearances: Natalia was human, so I wouldn't inherit my father's more unique features. And hadn't Pariah Dark once possessed a different appearance?

There was a portrait of how he'd looked in the Golden Age in chapter five. I went there, turning each page individually, trying to calm my thundering heart. Then I stopped, went ghost, got out a mirror, and kept turning.

The margin by the portrait was fascinating. It was a photo taken by some guy I'd never heard of of a then-three-hundred-year-old ghost king made by some famous artist I'd never heard of and placed in a museum I'd never heard of. Really. It really was interesting. I stared at the names for a long time, memorizing them, trying to delay for just a few seconds more. Then I sighed, grit my teeth, turned to Pariah himself.

The first thing I noticed was that he was smiling. It was an amazing smile, full of joy and charisma. That smile was powerful- it could turn enemies into friends, pacify raging subjects, calm rival nobles. It was absolutely nothing like my smile.

The next thing I saw was that his eyes were green; bright, brilliant green, and not just green but a _human _green. When he'd invaded Amity, his remaining eye had been smaller, lacking both pupils and sclera. You know that old saying about eyes being the window to the soul? It's true. If a ghost's personality changes radically, their eyes will become a different color.

I stared into the mirror, into my own green eyes. They were the exact same shade.

His hair was green, straight, slightly messy. I ran my fingers through my own hair, shook it. My eyes flickered back and forth: first at the man in the portrait, then at my reflection. Our hair wasn't the same color, but it seemed to have the same natural part.

Danni and I had Natalia's nose, eye shape, and ears, so I ignored those features. My fingers ran over my chin: thin, pointed, perfectly centered. I looked at Pariah's chin: thin, pointed, perfectly centered.

Suddenly I was sick of procrastinating. I just wanted to _know._ I shoved my hand into the wall, grabbed a picture of me and Danni horsing around in our ghost forms. The picture and the portrait sat side by side.

Danny, Danni, Dark. Or was it Danny and Danni Dark? Hopefully not, but that seemed all too likely.

The image nearly made me sick. We _did _look like him: same hair, same eyes, same chin and cheekbones and eyebrows. It could have been a family photo, especially if we added Natalia. Yes, I could see very well how their combined bloods could create two children like Danny and Danni Fenton-Phantom.

By now I was scraping at the very bottom of the excuses barrel. It was impossible simply because it was impossible. My mind refused to accept it. But _I _was impossible; I knew two other impossible beings, three if you counted Dan.

But if I was his- if this was true, the Observants would have destroyed me. They hated me, yes, (and no wonder) but they'd let me live. They'd never let Pariah's spawn, much less two of us, survive.

Then I remembered the C.A.T., how they'd sent Clockwork after me. They had wanted to eliminate me, but why had they waited so long? If I really was….

Of course. The C.A.T. was only a little bit after I'd defeated my… Pariah. Maybe they'd wanted to use me to lock him back up again. It made sense. Then, when my task was complete, there was no reason for me to exist and they sent Clockwork to annihilate me, but it backfired and they set Clockwork to keep an eye on me, make sure I didn't turn out like Pariah.

Like my father. Oh, flames, like _my father. _Mine and Danni's.

I couldn't deny it any longer. I, Danny Fenton-Phantom, protector of Amity Park, was the offspring of the most feared monster in history. I was the son of Pariah Dark.


	9. Meltdown

Imagine that Hitler had a son.

The son was spirited away at birth, hidden someplace that wasn't physically ravaged by World War II but had still suffered- let's say America. Amity Park, to be exact. He was raised by loving but eccentric parents, learned all about Hitler's evils during high school, and learned the truth when he was seventeen years old.

Substitute "Pariah Dark" for "Hitler" and "War of Power" for "World War II," and you've got my situation. No, I am not exaggerating. The King of All Ghosts was the Ghost Zone's equivalent of the Fuhrer. And this is why I wanted so badly to scream. Because if you were Hitler's son (or grandson, I suppose- it's been a while) you would scream too.

I don't know how long I sat there, paralyzed in horror, gawking at the two pictures. It was either just a few seconds or half of eternity.

_Knock, knock._ The gentle rapping startled me out of my appalled reverie. "Uh, yeah?" I squeaked. The transformation rings materialized around my waist, changing me back into Fenton.

"It's almost time for school, Danny," said Maddie's voice.

"Uh, right. School. So it is." I dog-eared the portrait of Pariah, shoved my photo next to the passage in chapter twenty, and hid the book inside my bed. "I'll be out in a second."

Phase through pajamas. Shower. Phase into new clothes. Brush teeth. Grab backpack, hope that it has everything I need because I'm too out of it to get anything else. Run out the door, go ghost, fly. I did this every day, but the… revelation… made everything seem surreal, twisted, tinted with ghostly green and evil red.

"You okay, man?" worried Tuck. "You look kinda sick."

I have no idea why, but his voice made me think of Danni. She didn't know what I'd found, but she was just as affected as me. She needed to know. "Not really," I mumbled, rummaging around for my cell phone. Danni was speed-dial 4.

"Hey, this is the answering machine for Danni. I'm not interested in buying anything or taking surveys, but if you have something important to say leave me a message."

I spoke in Esperanto. "I found him. The evidence is inside my mattress. Just don't scream because my foster-parents might hear."

"You found him?" Tucker parroted (in English). "That's-"

"Found who?"

I fought back a groan. Valerie Gray was an enemy, not someone I would ever confide in. Especially not about this. "My third cousin twice removed dared me to find his top-secret YouTube account."

She threw up her hands. "Hey, I was just asking. No need to be so touchy."

"So what's your cousin's screen name?" squawked Tucker. His grin was forced. "Sleepy Dreamer? Stormy? Sir Frightful?"

"Actually, it was someone who wasn't on my list."

"You had a list?" queried Valerie. Why didn't she take the hint?

"Yes," I snapped. "I had a list of screen names. They were all wrong."

First class was chemistry. I tried sending Tuck a note, but Lopez has eyes like an Observant. She grabbed it before it had gone two desks. She squinted at the unfamiliar words, _Rego Pariah Malluma_. Thank you, Esperanto.

Naturally, she gave me detention.

I missed my second class because Skulker showed up. He _regretted_ it.

Third class was English. We were starting a new book, _Le Morte d'Artur._ No, we were not going to read the entire thing- it's like 300,000 words or something- just the last bit, where Mordred overthrows his father. I paid very little attention, catching only snippets like "first true English novel" and "old legend that Arthur is only sleeping."

It was too much. Seriously, a story about some son who fights his king-father and makes him go to sleep? That was exactly what I had done- I'd fought my king-father and shoved him into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. The details were different- Pariah certainly hadn't been carried away by three queens, and Arthur wasn't evil and Mordred wasn't good- but the similarities were enough that I started giggling. Then laughing.

"Is something funny, Mr. Fenton?" demanded Lancer.

I didn't answer. I _couldn't. _I was laughing too hard. Tears ran down my cheeks, splashed onto the floor. My sides ached. I fell out of my desk, laughing and crying hysterically.

"Class dismissed," my teacher snapped. He grabbed my arm, hauled me off the floor, and helped me to the nurse's office. Actually, he _dragged_ me off to the nurse's office- I was laughing too hard to stand, let alone walk.

My hysteria didn't go unnoticed. Several teachers, hearing my deranged chortling, peeked out to see what was going on. How was it that they rarely noticed my witty banter in ghost fights yet still heard this?

By the time we got to the nurse's office, I had started snorting. I'd _never_ snort-laughed before, and that made me laugh (and snort) even harder, which started the cycle all over again.

"Mr. Fenton, are you all right?"

Somehow, I managed to nod. Lancer snorted (without a laugh). "No, you're not. Do I need to call your mother and father?"

I froze. My teacher had just unknowingly hit the nail on the head. Then I had this hilarious mental image of dainty Natalia and fifty-foot Pariah Dark (complete with mace, horns, armor, scars, eyepatch, Ring of Rage, Crown of Fire, etc.) sitting down in Lancer's office to discuss my mental health.

This bout of manic laughter was even louder than before.

NATALIA: What seems to be the problem, Mr. Lancer?

LANCER: Your son had a nervous breakdown in my English class.

PARIAH DARK (to Natalia): I blame your side of the family.

I fell off the bed, contorting around my aching stomach.

Lancer got out the phone, and my snorts started again. "D-don-'t wake up my f-father," I choked. "He's a (snort) rea-lly heavy sl-eeper!"

Fortunately, he didn't call Jack or Maddie. I probably couldn't have handled that. "Jasmine? Your brother is having a meltdown. The law requires me to inform a relative, and as it's either you or your parents, I thought I'd go with the less destructive option."

I imagined Jack and Maddie charging into the school, firing away at anyone who breathed wrong. Then I imagined Pariah Dark leading his skeleton army through the hallowed halls of Caspar High. Then the images got confused, and I imagined all three of them coming in, but Jack and Pariah had switched outfits.

Lancer handed me the phone. Jazz started ranting, but all I could think of was Pariah Dark, High King of All Ghosts, Prince of the Five Rivers, Commander of the Army of Thralls, Lord of the Infinite Realms, Terror of the Two Worlds, in Jack Fenton's garish orange jumpsuit.

Then my English teacher took the phone, placed it carefully on the nurse's desk, and dumped a bucket of water (where had that come from?) over my head.

I gasped, coughed, spluttered, but it worked. I was no longer wracked with spasmodic cackling. "Uh, thanks, I think."

"Any time, Mr. Fenton." He handed back the phone.

Once again, I thanked the obscurity of Esperanto before using it to communicate with a sister. "Sorry about that, Jazz."

"Are you okay?"

"No. I found him. He's Pariah Dark."

Jazz dropped the phone.

"What language are you speaking?" wondered Mr. Lancer.

"Esperanto," I sighed, listening to Jazz grab at the phone. "Can we just say I've had a really long week and that it'll never happen again?"

"Pariah Dark?" squealed Jazz. "Are you sure? No, of course you're sure. How did _that_ happen?"

"It's a long story," I grumbled in English, answering both her and my teacher.

"We-ell, it's better than the Box Ghost," she consoled me. "And it certainly explains why you're so powerful." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Danny, but I have a test in about five minutes. I swear I'll call you back when I'm done, okay?"

"Sure. Thanks." We hung up.

Now that my mania had ended, I was getting depressed. Because seriously, my… paternity… sucked.

Lancer closed his eyes. "I can't believe I'm doing this, but… go home, Mr. Fenton."

"What?"

"Go home," he repeated. "I don't know what is going on in your life right now, but you obviously need to do some thinking, and I doubt you can do that in school. Besides, your breakdown was extremely disruptive, and I'd prefer it if you didn't interrupt another class."

I smiled. "Thanks, Mr. Lancer."

This is why he's my favorite teacher. Yes, he gives me loads of detentions, but he also tutors me and gets my absences excused and acknowledges that there's something going on in my life that I need help with. He doesn't know what it is, and his snooping is kind of annoying, but it's nice to have a teacher who cares about you.

Not that I would ever say something so sappy to his face.

Sam and Tucker were pacing outside the nurse's office. I briefly wondered if they were skipping before remembering they were in English with me and Lancer had dismissed the class.

"What was that all about?" my girlfriend demanded.

No one was in the halls, but I kept my voice low. "Pariah Dark is my biological father."

Tucker dropped his PDA. "What? But- he wasn't on the list!" Blink. "Oh, wait, you said he wasn't on the list."

"You're _royalty?_" Sam was appalled. "Do you have any idea how thrilled my parents will be that I'm dating a prince?"

_Royalty?_ I hadn't thought of that. But, seeing as my father is the King of All Ghosts, I suppose I really am a prince. It was a bizarre thought.

"Your Highness," Tucker intoned, bowing playfully as he picked up the PDA.

Well, it wasn't like I'd been worried about them abandoning me. Sam and Jazz and Tucker had stood by me through thick and thin, through battles, injuries, kidnappings, everything. If they still loved me after the C.A.T., they'd stay by my side with this. Grinning, I hugged them. "Bow deeper next time, peasant!"

"So how did that happen, anyways?" questioned Sam.

Well, they had almost half an hour before their next class- I was home free. I told them about the book, the portrait, the photo.

"Wait. Didn't Clockwork give you that book?"

I froze. He _had_. And of course, being the Master of All Time and stuff, he'd known that we'd learn about project A.N.I.E.L. and my parentage. "He did. I didn't think of that. Sneaky."

"How does Pariah Dark translate into laugh attack?" Tucker wondered.

I blushed and started explaining my thought processes in Lancer's class and the pictures I'd imagined in the nurse's office. They laughed.

Of course they laughed. Because Pariah Dark in a neon orange jumpsuit is just too good.

Danni was sitting on my bed, pouring through _Reign of King_ like she'd be tested on it tomorrow in the most important final of her life and hadn't studied. I dropped my shields, not long enough for the house's pathetic security to notice, but long enough that her ghost sense (or rather halfa sense- teal breath instead of blue) went off.

She glanced up at me, green eyes sorrowful. "This is just too much."

"Tell me about it."

She sighed. "Well, it's not like we can do anything. You can't choose your past, only your future."

"I repeat: tell me about it."

Danni grinned. "You know what, Danny? I was just thinking about how nobody knows about the whole 'future' thing, and if we've kept that a secret, who says we have to blab about this? I mean, if it was someone we liked, like Clockwork, I'd tell the entire Ghost Zone. But since Pariah is probably the most hated individual in history…" She grimaced. "Let's just keep this quiet, okay?"

"_Good_ idea. Obvious, but good."

"Well, I had to say _some_thing."

"True."

"We should go visit Clockwork," Danni announced. "Maybe he'll know more about him." She smiled sheepishly. "Because I do kinda want to know, y'know?"

"Me too." I'd always been interested in the old Ghost King, but now I was downright fascinated. You'd be too.

Danni unrolled the Infi-map. I grinned, grabbing on. It wouldn't bring us to Clockwork's Tower directly, but there was this famous war memorial nearby. All we had to do was get there with the map and fly the rest of the way. Easy as cake.

Except right before we got into the Ghost Zone, we discovered that Jack, as per usual, was playing with the Fenton Portal and ghosts, as per usual, were taking shameless advantage of his… enthusiasm. We paused, invisible to full-humans but not to ghosts, and met each other's eyes.

If it had just been the Box Ghost or an ecto-pus, we would have let the Fentons deal with it. Instead, they'd gone and released Nocturne and a pair of angry-looking stegosauri. Danni sighed. Her hands moved. Thanks to the gift of tongues, we were both fluent in sign language. _I'll take Nocturne,_ she signaled.

I sighed. _I'll get the lizards. _

We attacked.


	10. Politics of the Past

I am _so, so _sorry about not updating for so long. I just *shrugs*. Okay, I don't really have any excuses.

On another note, I've hit a minor case of writer's block about what to do after the next chapter. Any ideas (except Danny and Danni taking over the GZ or releasing Daddy) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, and sorry again. -Corona

* * *

"Oh, Clooooockwoooooork!" I sing-songed. His lair loomed before us in a way that would have been intimidating if we hadn't been used to us. To the Phantom twins, his creepy floating castle was as welcoming as an old lady's kitchen.

"We have something to talk about," sang Danni.

But was it Clockwork who came out to talk with us? No. It was one of the Observants, the slightly (okay, very) creepy eyeballs-on-sticks who once tried to eliminate me, boss Clockwork around, have functioned as the Ghost Zone's ruling council since winning the War of Power and who, despite having no visible mouths, never shut up.

The Observant narrowed its eye at us, which poses another anatomical question: most of the time, they _don't have eyelids._ Seriously, they just have one ginormous eye above their robes that can turn a full 360 degrees. I've seen the back of their heads (or eyes. Whatever) and there's no skin there, just creepy back-of-the-eye stuff. So where do the eyelids come from when they want to glare at people? It's just weird.

You would think that, being a halfa, I'm used to illogical body types, but I'm not. I might switch between forms like a normal, fully human or fully ghost person changes clothes, but both my bodies are totally logical. Everything is where it's supposed to be, and I don't just randomly sprout spare body parts just to glower at people. That would be really, really creepy.

Have I mentioned that Observants creep me out?

"What are _you_ doing here?"

Another thing about Observants: they don't like me. Or Danni. Or our relationship with Clockwork. Or just about anything about us.

The feeling's mutual.

"We're looking for Clockwork," Danni explained, deliberately ignoring its rudeness.

"What a coincidence," commented a dry, sarcastic voice. "You've found me."

Predictably, the Observant ignored Clockwork (which was rather rude, since it was his tower). It kept glaring at us. Danni and I floated awkwardly over to our friend, trying to ignore the other spirit. Unfortunately, the Observant made that rather difficult by flying between us.

"I will not allow you to use his emotional weakness to learn about your parentage," it sniffed.

Clockwork snorted. "Once again you've proved your ignorance. They already know about Pariah."

The Observant's eye grew even larger (How? It _doesn't have eyelids._ Was its eye actually growing in size?) _"What?" _It shot forward to Clockwork, jabbed him in the chest. "You were explicitly forbidden-"

"I'm quite aware of that." His voice was impassive as always, but I knew him well enough to detect the slight undercurrent of mischievousness. Clockwork and the Observants have a long-standing relationship of mutual loathing, and he likes nothing more than to get under their skins. "Believe it or not, I had nothing to do with their discovery." His lips quirked before settling into an indifferent line.

The Observant was not amused. Danni and I were torn between laughter and horror- we knew these spats could get ugly, but the full-ghosts' expressions were just so funny. We compromised by staying silent and hoping they didn't notice us.

Fat chance of that happening.

The eyeball-on-a-stick gestured wildly at us. "Don't lie, Clockwork! We all know you had something to do with it. Your closeness to the little brats-"

The time ghost's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You will show your prince and princess the proper respect."

My brain shut down. Prince and princess. Half-breed or not, I was a freaking _prince_. Sure, Sam had joked about it earlier that day, but none of us had taken her seriously. Because the thought of _me,_ goofy Danny Fenton-Phantom, as royalty was just too absurd.

And even worse, I wasn't just royalty. Pariah Dark was the King of AllGhosts. All, as in, _every single spirit in the Ghost Zone._ All six billion of them. As his son (the thought was alien in my mind), I was Royalty. Or maybe even ROYALTY.

I could feel another meltdown in the making.

The Observant freaked. Its body swelled until it was fifteen feet tall. Lightning cracked at the skirt of its robes. Its eye narrowed into a thin slit, the eyelid materializing once again. My ghost sense went off- it had dropped its shields, revealed its true power.

My guardian was unimpressed. "A temper tantrum. How very mature."

"Uh, Clockwork," hissed Danni, "I don't think that's a good-"

"Silence, brat!" snapped the eyeball. It pointed at her. A streak of lightning bolted from its finger.

Fortunately, Danni is a lightning elemental (and fire and ice and wind, but those weren't exactly applicable at the moment). She caught the electricity with ease, green eyes narrowing dangerously. The lightning bounced in her hand, ready to rebound.

"ENOUGH!" Clockwork dropped his own shields. His power washed over us, cold and ancient as Time itself. A second later, Danni dropped her own shields, and I realized with a start that my friends were almost equal in power. They were certainly stronger than the Observant. Then I realized I was gaping and lowered my own shields. It was more a show of support than anything else- Clockwork and Danni were more than capable of handling our enemy.

For a few seconds we floated there. No one was willing to give in. The Observant's eye darted from me to my sister to our friend and protector. The lightning on its robes dimmed, vanished.

"I must inform the Council of this… development," it declared icily. A horizontal slit appeared in the air behind it. The slit opened into an eye, and the Observant retreated.

"…That could have gone better." My voice trailed off into nothing.

"Yeah," mumbled Danni. The lightning in her hands dissipated. "You're probably right."

Cue awkward silence.

Finally Clockwork shrugged. "Come inside, younglings."

Normally I would have teased him about calling us younglings when he was in child form, but it really didn't seem appropriate right then. We went inside, still silent.

Questions bubbled through my mind. What was he like? I mean, besides being a psychopathic tyrant bent on destroying the universe for no immediately apparent reason. What was his personality like? Where did he come from? Did he have any siblings, parents, other secret children? What exactly did it mean that Danni and I were Dark royalty? It obviously meant something- look at what Clockwork had said to the Observant.

But what I said was, "Why did they let us survive?"

He smiled ruefully. "Right to the heart of the matter, I see." He paused, thinking.

"When Pariah's blood was first stolen, they had no idea what had happened to it. Theories ranged from evaporation to espionage. They had no way to know for certain- their information network was practically nonexistent, completely decimated by the war." He raised a hand, forestalling our comment. "And they could not ask me, because I was only a few years dead. My powers weren't developed enough to track down the blood."

We didn't say anything. It was extremely rude to ask how a ghost had died or about the development of his powers. It was like asking a total stranger how they experienced puberty.

"When nothing happened, they assumed that it had merely evaporated and almost completely forgot the incident. Then we became aware of Corporal C-29's mission. The Observants immediately ordered me to predict what the blood's return implied…."

One of the viewscreens sprang to light. My fourteen-year-old self, dressed in a very familiar battle suit, flew through the Ghost Zone towards a twisted red castle. The image changed, and the younger Danny Phantom forced Pariah into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.

"They were not pleased about a child with Dark's blood, much less two, but they eventually admitted that if Pariah were to escape, it would be better to let you fight him than to begin a second war. However, once you had defeated him, they grew afraid. Child or not, you were- are- extremely powerful. Things grew even worse when they foresaw Danielle's return." Clockwork scowled, gripping his Time Staff more tightly. "Of course, I am not allowed to speak the truth of what happened next, and only a royal order can overcome the Council's command."

"But Pariah is locked- oh." Danni blushed. "Well, uh, consider yourself royally ordered."

"Times two," I agreed.

Tension I hadn't even realized was there faded from his shoulders. He gestured to a very familiar Fenton Thermos. In the medieval gloom of his lair, the modern machine looked out of place. "Do you have any idea how obscure that timeline was?"

My jaw sagged.

"I knew it!" yelled Danni. She threw her arms around my neck. "I _knew_ it was a scam!"

"Obscure?" My voice was soft, high, pathetic.

Clockwork nodded. "Extremely obscure." His face softened. "Your timelines diverged in the Fenton Portal. You kept forgiving those who hunted and hated you; he grew bitter and angry even before the explosion. Trust me, Danny- you are two very different people."

My head was spinning. I sat down, unable to take it all in. Pariah Dark, I could handle that (okay, maybe not, but I could try), but… this?

"You know most of what happened after that- the Observants gave me guardianship of Danny Phantom." He smiled at Danni. "They just never said which one."

She smirked. "So that's how I ended up in Vlad's cloning chamber."

"My head hurts," I complained.

Clockwork nodded. "Yes, I imagine you're a bit overwhelmed."

"As always, your talent for understatement astounds me."

He smiled, held out a gear-shaped medallion. I accepted it gratefully. "How long?"

"You have all the time in the world." He gestured to Danni, who was taking all this a lot better than I was (probably because she'd always known she was an experiment), and they floated out of the room, leaving me alone with my whirling thoughts.

I was a project. Dan was a scam. Natalia Fenton was my mother. Pariah Dark was my father. Danni wasn't a clone. All my deepest-held beliefs were crumbling, dying. What would I learn next- that Lancer was a five-hundred-year-old space alien at the forefront of a bloody invasion? The way things were going, I wouldn't be surprised.

My half-life was a lie.

I don't know how long I sat there trying to process everything. It was irrelevant anyways- in Clockwork's tower, time doesn't matter. Still, it must have been hours of silent concentration, moving only to uncramp muscles and shift position.

Finally I removed the medallion, shifting back into the world of motion. I hadn't exactly accepted everything- that would take a _long_ time- but I wasn't going to lose it in the near future (unless, of course, Lancer _was_ a five-hundred-year-old alien).

I flew after Danni and Clockwork into the main viewing hall, where they were watching my battle with Pariah Dark again. I flew up to join them. "Do you have to watch that?"

"Yes."

Clockwork turned, frowning in a way that made me very nervous. "Lovely," he murmured under his breath. "Five… four… three… two…one…."

"CLOCKWORK!"

The door burst open to reveal three Observants in full twelve-foot, lightning-covered, generally grouchy forms. I'd never admit it, but they looked pretty intimidating.

Danni crouched, ready for battle. Her tension was almost palpable- after all, one of these (I couldn't tell which; Observants are pretty indistinguishable) had tried to electrocute her.

"There's no need to yell," the time ghost groused. "I'm not deaf, you know."

Normally the Observants are very coordinated. They share a collective consciousness, kind of like ants or bees but without a queen. This lets them speak one at a time, which is kind of dizzying if you're not used to it. Now, though, they were so flustered that they were speaking on top of each other.

"-INSOLENT-"

"-ROYALTY, ABSURD-"

"-COUNCIL COMMANDS-"

"-HALF-HUMAN BRATS-"

"-MORE LIKE DARK _SPAWN_-"

"TODAY! THIS IS NON-NEGOGIABLE!"

"Shut up!" I yelled at them, and miracle of miracles, they actually shut up. It was the first time they'd ever listened to me. That was _so wrong_ it wasn't even gratifying.

All three Observants were doing this creepy eyeball-anger-twitch thing. I could tell that they wanted nothing more than to come over and strangle me. When the middle spirit spoke, its words were punctuated with utter loathing.

"We of the Council-_request-"_ Its entire body twitched. "-the presence of _Lord_ Clockwork and-" It twitched again, fists convulsing. "-the pr- his _wards_- at our next meeting, to be held this day at nineteen hundred hours." Literally trembling with rage, the eyeball and its retinue floated out of Clockwork's lair, slamming the door so hard that the viewscreens shook.

It was a serious déjà vu moment- one second there was an angry Observant yelling at us, then it was gone and we were left floating in awkward silence. Then Danni broke it by summing up all our thoughts.

"Well, _that_ could have gone better."


	11. Preparation

When you're summoned to a meeting of the High Observant Council, there are several things you need to do: construct alibis ("Hey, Mom, there's a new movie coming out tonight…."), find substitute ghost hunters ("We'll be _fine,_ Danny. Quit being paranoid."), formulate speeches ("Consequently, oh wise and _merciful_ Observants, Danni and I should not be persecuted for our unfortunate parentage."), and, worst of all, find suitable _clothing._

Because apparently my nice, not-stained, not-too-small, comfortable uniform isn't good enough.

"Quit sulking, Sir Phantom," advised Dora. Right on cue, her seamstress poked me in the armpit. I winced.

"But-"

"Ignore him," advised Danni. It was easy for her to say- she had a good seamstress who didn't poke her every five seconds. "He's just being a baby."

"I am not! This is insulting to my masculinity." I folded my arms in defiance (it was not sulking) and yelped as my seamstress poked me yet again. She had to be doing that on purpose.

"Why did they summon you at such short notice?" Dora wondered. "Normally, the Observants give three days' warning."

Danni and I flinched. "It's a really long story," she sighed. "We'll probably tell you later." She glanced at the two seamstresses, then back at the princess. Dora nodded slightly.

Danni's seamstress poked her. I _told_ you they were doing it on purpose!

Dora started lecturing them on being nice to "Sir and Lady Phantom." The seamstresses just nodded away with the expression of teenagers in Mr. Lancer's class. Funnily enough, though, the poking stopped.

I contented myself with that petty victory. It was much, much better than thinking about what might happen at the Council meeting.

_Keep calm,_ Clockwork had said. _Don't let them intimidate you. Remember, younglings, that they are far more afraid of you than you are of them. _

_Well _that's _encouraging._ Danni had been tapping her foot, arms folded nervously. _Scared people do stupid things. _

_But do you know why they are so afraid? _

My smile had been bitter. _Because we're the unholy spawn of the demon who laid waste to half the Ghost Zone? _

A frown- he didn't like me talking that way. _Partially, I suppose, but it has more to do with politics. Pariah Dark founded the High Observant Council._ His eyes bored into ours. _As his heirs- technically illegitimate, but still his heirs- you have the power to disband it. _

_You're _joking.

_No. It would require an obscene amount of paperwork, but you could disband the Council. _A scowl._ I wouldn't recommend it, though. Something would have to fill the vacuum of power they would leave behind, and most of the options aren't pretty. Still, they don't need to know that. _

"Sir Phantom?" My pokey seamstress's voice interrupted my memories. I blinked at her. "Your attire is complete." She dragged me over to a mirror and started rambling about velvet and embroidery and other girly things that manly men don't concern themselves with.

Dora was grinning at us. "You look like a prince," she assured me.

I choked. She had used the p-word (well, one of them. Pariah and princess also started with p). "Uh… thanks?"

She stared at me, confused. I shrugged apologetically, but I was _not_ explaining the whole unholy-spawn-of-Pariah-Dark=reluctant-royalty thing in front of the seamstresses.

Time to change the subject. "Have you ever met the Observants?"

She shook her head, blond braid swinging. "I have never been summoned to a Council meeting, but one did stop by my kingdom shortly after we overthrew my brother."

I sighed. "And here I was hoping you'd have some tips for us."

Dora floated over to me, placed her hand on my shoulder. It was a big deal for her- in Aragon, women didn't often touch men, especially once both were full-grown. If she was defying the social norms to comfort me, I must be radiating distress. "You will be fine, Sir Phantom. You've done nothing wrong, and you are half-human. You aren't entirely under their power. Still, it couldn't hurt to be polite. Treat them with respect, but do _not_ grovel- you are a mighty warrior and a lord in four kingdoms. Listen to Lord Clockwork- he has much more experience with the Observants than I, and he can guide you."

Danni giggled. "You obviously haven't seen how Clockwork treats them," she chortled. "If we tried to imitate him, the Observants would have us locked up."

Dora blushed. Clockwork's rivalry with the Observants was the stuff of legends. "Perhaps that was not the best example. Don't imitate him, but follow his lead."

Danni's seamstress had finally finished. The two servants left the room, leaving us alone with Dora. She hesitated. "Perhaps you could- er- 'bounce your defense' off me?" She was still unfamiliar with modern slang.

Danni and I hesitated. "It's not that we don't trust you, Dora-"

"-but I just found out earlier today-"

"-and I found out yesterday, and it's a lot to take in-"

"-much less explain, especially since it involves a lot of techno jargon-"

"-and no offense, but you're still getting used to that."

The princess looked hurt. I groaned, looked at Danni. _Can't you say it? _

_Baby. _She sighed. "It's about our… parentage."

Dora's eyes went wide. "Have the Fentons constructed an ectoranium bomb?"

I took over. "Uh, no. At least, not that I'm aware of, and they kinda boast about that stuff, so I would know. Actually," deep breaths, Fenton-Phantom, deep breaths, "it turns out that Jack and Maddie are not… um… biologically related to us."

Our friend was thrilled. "Excellent! I _knew _you couldn't be the offspring of those buffoons. So what are you worried about? If you are not the children of ghost hunters, the Observants will be much more inclined to accept you, despite your hybrid status."

My gaze bored into the floor. Danni's voice was thin and nervous. "Actually, our biological parents are even worse than ghost hunters. At least, our… father… is. Our mother seems nice enough, but since she's a Christian martyr, we don't know for sure."

I glanced up. Dora's brow was furrowed. Her eyes grew even wider. For one wild moment, I thought she'd figured everything out and was about to sic her guards on us, but instead she asked, "Were you born halfas?"

That was safe territory. We nodded. "Yeah. Ghost father, human mother. And-" time to take the plunge "-ourfatherisPariahDark."

She obviously hadn't understood that. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Pariah Dark," whispered Danni. She looked away, unable to meet Dora's gaze.

Dora fainted.

I've dealt with fainting people before- it's an occupational hazard of being a superhero. So it didn't take long to wake Dora up.

She stared at us in a very un-princess-like way, eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. "Please tell me you were joking."

"I wish it were a joke," Danni groaned, "but it's not."

Dora's hands trembled. "How in the name of the Five Rivers did _that _happen?"

I flinched. "Y'know how some of Pariah's blood vanished during the Battle of Mal'observem'ul'a? Well, apparently it was stolen by a time-traveling ghost hunter, given to Jack and Maddie, and combined with human DNA to create Danni and yours truly. Then Danni disintegrated, but Clockwork stole her, sent her forward in time to Vlad's cloning machine, and saved her. At least, that's the short version."

She shuddered. "I don't want to know the long version. By the Forever Sleep, _Pariah Dark…_." Her voice trailed off. Bulging eyes narrowed. "Which of you is the elder?"

Danni pointed.

Dora dropped to her knees, head hitting my feet. Now it was my turn to gawk. "My liege," she murmured.

I made an incoherent sputtering sound. "Uh… that won't be necessary. Because I'm half-human. And I'm not interested in becoming king. Too much paperwork. Plus lots of ghosts hate me. So yeah."

Color me slow, but I hadn't really thought about the slightly obvious fact that _princes are supposed to freaking succeed kings._ Jazz would say I was in denial. I would say that I'd been kind of busy adjusting to everything else and hadn't had enough time to think about this.

That, and I was in denial.

"Because I'm not going to be doing _that,"_ I blathered on, pretty much just spitting out everything that popped into my head. "Plus I probably couldn't, being half-human and all. So yeah. Please stop groveling at my feet."

She was giving me a really weird look, and I started to worry about the guards again. Then, amazingly, she laughed. "You are not particularly happy about this, are you." The princess shook her head. "But then, I am not particularly happy about Aragon, either."

I blanched. Aragon was her brother, a psychotic dragon shape-shifter who had ruled their little kingdom for centuries before Dora overthrew him. Even worse, he'd kidnapped Sam and tried to marry her.

"We're kind of keeping this quiet," Danni explained. She smiled ruefully. "Not that you'd've known that, since we pretty much just blurted it out to you two minutes into our private conversation."

Dora nodded. "Might I recommend that you not mention this to King Frostbite or Queen Pyrrha?"

I imagined their reaction and shuddered. It would _not_ be pretty. "Good idea."

Dora changed the subject- sort of. "Is this why the Observants wish to see you?"

"Yeah. We went to talk to Clockwork about all this, but there was an Observant there and it got mad at us because it thought we were snooping, so Clockwork told it- I can never tell if they're male or female- that we already knew. Then it freaked out, zapped me with lightning, and came back with a pair of its obnoxious buddies. Sometimes I swear they exist to make us miserable." Danni scowled.

"Most of the Ghost Zone feels that way," Dora acknowledged.

I bit my lip. "So you're just… taking this? Because you're a lot calmer than I expected, except for when you fainted."

She actually chuckled. "Actually, I think this is… suspended disbelief? Is that what you call it when you are in too much shock to acknowledge something?"

"I think so, yeah."

The awkward silence came back with a vengeance. After all, what else were we supposed to say? "Oh, I'm totally fine with my father being a psychotic ghost king. Lovely weather we've been having lately, isn't it?"

Fortunately, the awkwardness was interrupted when one of Dora's pages wandered into the room to give us the time. It was almost six-thirty, so we had just over half an hour before the Observants killed us. I grinned weakly at Danni. "Y'know, we could cover a lot of distance with the Infi-map."

"Don't tempt me."

Dora frowned, held out her hand. Danni sighed, forking over the Infi-map. There goes our escape plan.

Clockwork was waiting in the entrance hall, totally ignoring the effect he was having on Dora's subjects. He's a _legend_. Seriously, there are books about him and urban myths and everything. He even has his own _cult._ (I've met the high priestess, a crazy nut job who calls herself Hourglass. She _scares_ me, and she scares him too. The Observants threaten to betroth them whenever Clockwork does something they really don't approve of- and it works.) So the ghosts were more than a little nervous with him just floating there.

"Ready to go?" he asked softly.

"Yeah," muttered Danni. "Let's just go. You're scaring them."

"Good luck, Sir Phantom, Lady Phantom."

"Thanks, Dora." My stomach fluttered. We would need it.

Clockwork spent the next half hour (actually, it was probably more than half an hour- he's the Master of All Time, after all) giving us the battle plan. It was pretty standard stuff- hold your temper, remember you have blackmail material, and ignore their insinuations that you're evil rotten Dark spawn destined to destroy the universe, because you're not.

How reassuring.

"Can we maybe reschedule this?" Danni asked nervously. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead. "Because I would kind of like to not die today."

"You're not going to die."

"Is that a prophecy or just something you felt obligated to say?" With Clockwork, it could be either.

"A prophecy," he replied calmly, totally disregarding our nerves. "The only timeline in which you wouldn't be fine involves structural instabilities in the Council Chamber and a rock hitting your brother's head."

We didn't relax. Clockwork was way into "self-fulfilling prophecies" and "seeing the parade from above," and it would be just like him to lie about our chances so we would get a false sense of security and narrowly avoid disintegration. It was a _good_ dishonest manipulation, but it was still dishonest manipulation.

He sighed. "Do you two really think I'll let them eliminate you?"

"…No."

"Exactly. So quit worrying. You have my word that everything will be fine."

The tension fled my shoulders. Clockwork was a cunning, manipulative liar, but if he gave his word, he would keep it. I smiled broadly at him and was rewarded by a tiny half-grin in response.

Then the door to the Council Chamber opened, and my newfound reassurance fled like a ghost from a hunter.


	12. Negotiations

The only thing worse than stepping into a room where everyone is staring at you is stepping into a room where one hundred and sixty-nine Observants are glaring at you. Even better, they'd brought the Ancients, the thirteen constructs who had forced Pariah into the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. If that wasn't a threat, I'd eat Dan's thermos.

Why do these things always happen to me? It wasn't like I could help it that my father was a crazy locked-up ghost king who had destroyed half the Ghost Zone in a bloody twelve-year bout of insanity. I couldn't even help it that I had the power to disband the High Observant Council itself. It wasn't like I was going to- though if they kept this up, I'd be pretty tempted.

"Daniel and Danielle Fenton-Phantom-Dark." The Observant's voice was hard and stern, but I hardly noticed. Fenton, Phantom, Dark. Two of those I accepted, but the third? No way.

"Fenton-Phantom," I snapped.

"What?" The Observant pulled up short, not used to defiance, especially not from a half-human teenager.

"Daniel and Danielle Fenton-Phantom. Those are our legal names on the Council's records. If someone added the 'Dark' part, it was without our knowledge and consent, which makes it illegal, so our surname is just Fenton-Phantom." Please don't shoot me….

"Very well," it growled, "Daniel and Danielle Fenton-Phantom, you are called here today on charges most grievous: first, repeated interaction with the Mortal Realm; second, bringing humans and human contraband into the Barrens, Far Frozen, the Burning Lands, Achaea, and Aragon; third, rebelling against the rightful King of All Ghosts."

It was a good thing we were in the Ghost Zone. In the human world, my gaping mouth would have attracted hundreds and hundreds of flies.

"Give your defense," the Observant commanded.

All my plans flew out the metaphorical window. I'd been prepared for wild accusations of following in Pariah's footsteps (fat chance), but this- this was nuts! Come on, _they _were accusing _me _of rebellion? Seriously? _I_ was not the one who'd led a years-long revolution that completely overthrew the government of the Golden Age. And 'repeated interaction with the Mortal Realm'? News flash- _we lived there!_

"You're insane!" Danni blurted. The entire roomful of eyeballs focused the Stare of Doom on her. She shrank back a little, then took a firm step forward. "Only full-ghosts are need passports for Earth- not that you've been enforcing that for anyone else in the entire Underworld. We're half-human; that law doesn't apply to us- and even if it did, it hasn't been enforced for, like, five hundred years!"

"Five hundred and twenty-seven," Clockwork murmured.

Danni gave him a look that clearly indicated she wanted nothing more than to take his Time Staff and shove it up his nose. I took over her tirade. "And for the whole 'human invaders' thing, we have express permission from the king, queens, and princess of the four places you mentioned. They like Sam and Tucker and Jazz- Dora, um, Princess Dorothea of Aragon, even made Sam her advisor."

"That does not excuse your infractions in the Barrens."

Clockwork smirked. "So you admit that it does excuse their human friends' visits to the other realms."

Danni lost her shove-it-up-his-nose glare. The Observants decided to copy it.

The Barrens are the roughly spherical region centered around Pariah's Keep. They have no king, no lord, no form of organization. Only informal codes and the occasional intervention of the High Observant Council keep it from falling into complete chaos.

"The no-humans law doesn't apply to the Barrens," I pointed out. "They're called the Lawless Lands for a reason." I folded my arms. "Why don't you just admit that you're making things up because you don't want Pariah's biological kids running around?"

"You dare-"

"We are not being recorded," Clockwork said quietly. "We can speak frankly." He folded his arms. "What are your terms?"

"The High Observant Council does not negotiate with criminals," the spokesman declared primly.

Clockwork snorted. "What does that have to do with anything?"

I love that guy. Obviously not in the same way I love Sam (that would add a very creepy dimension to the whole Dan-is-a-prisoner-in-his-tower thing), but in a totally platonic, you-_rock_ way. It's one of the reasons the Observants hate me.

"Have they stolen? Have they ever knowingly broken one of our laws? Need I remind you that upon learning that humans couldn't enter the Ghost Zone, Daniel summoned me to his home in the Mortal Realm to apologize for his perceived transgressions? I told him then that he was in violation of no rules, none of the laws of our people, and neither was Danielle. If you want to prosecute a halfa, go bother Vladimir." He was in child form, but he somehow looked scarier than the Council and the Ancients combined. "Otherwise, leave my charges alone."

Once again: I love that guy.

"We're willing to negotiate," I blurted. "I'll give up my ability to disband you if you quit trying to eliminate us."

For once in their loudmouthed afterlives, the Observants were silent. "Ditto," Danni growled. "But if you don't let us go, we _will _retain that power. And we'll use it, too."

I am the carrot. She is the stick. Together, we can do anything.

"I propose that we call a recess," said an Observant in the back row.

"I second the motion," agreed his/her/its neighbor.

Danni, Clockwork, and I filed out of the Council Chamber. I released a shuddering breath, wiped sweat from my forehead. "Think they're gonna kill us?"

"You're halfas. You can't be killed."

"That's not what I meant, smart aleck."

I think he rolled his eyes, but since they're red all over, I couldn't really tell. "They will not harm you, youngling. Once again, you have my word."

Danni relaxed for the first time since she'd learned our father's identity. A smile quirked her lips. "Is that a prediction or a prophecy?"

"Both, of course. I am experienced enough to predict things without actually looking into the future."

"Think you could fast-forward us so we don't have to wait?" I asked hopefully.

This time, I _know _he rolled his eyes at me, red all around or not. "Children nowadays have no patience," he murmured, but he said it fondly. "Why don't you find some kind of distraction?"

We both knew that tone. "…Like?" Danni smirked.

"You should go explore your sire's Keep."

I don't know what we were expecting, but it sure wasn't that. I blinked at him stupidly, not knowing what to say except a moronic-sounding "Wha?" Beside me, Danni's jaw worked like a fish out of water. "Why?" she demanded.

You might not have noticed this, but she's a lot calmer than I am. I think it's because I was so paranoid back when my powers first came back, and the scars have remained on my psyche or something. I should really ask Jazz about that. Anyways, the point of this little tangent is that while I stood there gawking, Danni actually asked an intelligent question.

Clockwork's answer was ambiguous as always: "Are you not curious?"

Neither of us bought that, but we knew better than to ask. He wouldn't give a clearer answer if his afterlife depended on it. Still, it was probably a good idea to check out the Keep. Clockwork never made suggestions, no matter how innocuous, without a reason. Take yesterday, for example, when he 'suggested' that I read a book and I ended up learning who my father was. So, without another word, Danni held out the Infi-map, and we flew to Pariah's Keep.

The castle was just as creepy as I remembered: red, dank, empty, and filled with booby-traps. Fortunately, all we had to do was revert to human form to avoid being crushed. The Keep was designed to keep out invading spirits, not human teens.

Normally, I would have gone through the rooms, the passages, the basements and attics and hidden places, but that day we gravitated straight to the throne room… and the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep.

We stared at it for a long, long time, perfectly silent, not knowing what to think or even if we should think. Maybe we shouldn't. Sometimes, it was easier, better, just to feel.

And so we felt.

Finally, after half an eternity had passed, I floated closer to the Sarcophagus and began inspecting it. Clockwork had to have some reason to have sent us here, and I had the nasty feeling it had something to do with Pariah's prison. Maybe it had been damaged in our battle three years ago; maybe he'd put a hole in it just in case someone sealed him again.

There wasn't- at least not that I could see. If any hole existed, it was so tiny that a halfa's inhuman vision couldn't pick it out, or it was a deep gouge on the inside of the Sarcophagus.

If there had been a hole…. I looked down at my glove-covered hands. If the Sarcophagus had been made of Pariah's blood, Danni and I could seal it with our own. It probably wouldn't be as pure or as strong, but it would be a whole lot easier than letting Pariah escape again and extracting a whole bunch of his blood (speaking of which, how the heck did they managed that the first time? Blood is powerful, especially the blood of powerful people; I can't see the Ghost King just leaving a bunch of it lying around. If the Observants don't kill me, I'll have to ask).

"No holes," I announced.

And that was when the soul-eating crocodile monster attacked us.

* * *

*cowers* I am so, so sorry that this update took so long! *begs shamelessly* I swear that the next one won't take almost two months to get up. Please forgive me. -Corona


	13. Family Pet

First off, I'd like to offer an apology. I only came up with the idea for the monster a couple chapters ago, and didn't know I'd be incorporating it until I finished the last chapter. If I'd known that this plot twist was coming up, I'd have dropped more foreshadowing and other hints so this would seem less _deus ex machina._ I feel like this chapter takes the easy way out and that I'm cheating by taking a shortcut, but there aren't many other ways to do what needs to be done. Therefore, this way-too-convenient encounter is necessary. Once again, I'm sorry for this. If this had been a real book, I'd've gone back and added a lot more hints before publishing at all. Such are the joys of fanfiction.

* * *

Danni shrieked as the lion-maned part-crocodile, part-hippo thing jumped on top of her. Its toothy jaws opened wide, fangs gleaming in the dim light of Pariah's Keep.

And then it was licking her face, its ridiculously tiny hippo tail wagging like a dog's.

Happy happy happy! The creature didn't exactly speak; it was more a series of impressions flowing directly from her puppy-like mind into ours. In those three bursts of joyful energy, I learned several things: 1) she was happy 2) she would never hurt me, Danni, or anyone under our protection and 3) despite her monstrous appearance, she was as friendly and loyal as the average terrier.

"I'm happy to see you too," Danni assured her, totally nonplussed.

Yay happy make master-she-pup happy. Happy make master-he-pup happy? 

"Yeah. Ammut, right?"

In Egyptian mythology, Ammut is the Devourer, the monster who feasts on the souls of the impure. In real life, she was Pariah Dark's favorite pet: a small hippo, about the size of a St. Bernard, covered in tawny, dark-spotted lion fur from tail to mane. Somewhere beneath the mane, her lion form becomes the head of a crocodile, scales and fangs and all. Ammut was also Pariah's instrument of judgment, a kind of spectral electric chair. If a ghost was irredeemably evil, Ammut would eat him.

Yes, I know that she obviously had the opportunity to eat Pariah and didn't. No one knows why; most scholars point out that she disappeared before the war started and speculate that Pariah destroyed her so she wouldn't turn on him. She hasn't been seen for centuries.

The legendary monster who had terrified the Egyptians and mystified intellectuals for millennia jumped on top of me, grinning and wagging her ridiculous tail so hard I thought she would burst at the seams. Master call me Ammut, yes. Happy! Not know _true_ master- before-bad-soul-master, not after-bad-soul-not-real-master- had pups. Ammut love he-pup and she-pup. 

"He-pup and she-pup?" Danni repeated.

I shrugged. "It's better than unholy Dark spawn." Pause. "Or Inviso-Bill."

She made a face but was forced to agree.

After a final face lick, Ammut bounced off of me. She perched on her haunches, grinning like a loon. Master-pups here save real good master? Miss master. No like bad master. 

Two pictures floated into my mind: when Ammut referred to 'master,' she thought of the man whose portrait I'd seen in _Reign of King._ When she thought of 'bad master,' I saw Pariah as I had known him: the cold, ruthless conqueror. She saw him as two different people… and she was asking us to restore Pariah's sanity.

In a movie or one of those sappy pulp books, we would have opened the Sarcophagus, introduced ourselves as Pariah's kids, and watch as his paternal emotions redeemed him from the path of darkness. It would have taken awhile (though time would have passed in a steady montage of familial images, complete with several close-ups to his face as he realized how important we were to him), and we'd have faced some difficulties, but in the end we'd have some perfect Disneyesque ending where everything turns out okay, Tucker and Danni or Jazz get together (romance is obligatory for children's movies), and everyone lives happily ever after.

But this was reality. He'd already tried to eliminate me once, and I doubted some family tie he hadn't ever heard about would quench his desire for revenge. If we let him out, he'd tear me to shreds, blast Danni and Ammut to smithereens, and proceed to rampage through the Ghost Zone until he'd destroyed everything or the Observants captured him again.

"No," I sighed, "we're not here."

The crocodile head dropped to the floor. Ammut stared at us with big, doleful eyes, not understanding.

I flinched away. "I don't know how. Danni doesn't either."

That, apparently, was forgivable, because Ammut perked up. So master-pups will try? Want master-pups try. Master-pups strong. Master-pups hold down until master better. But until master-pups can, master sleep. She huffed a sigh. Sad, but master-pups make happy, will make happy when help master. 

It took me awhile to decipher that, but then I nodded. "Okay. We'll do that."

Great. Now I'd made a promise to a soul-eating hippo monster. And since I keep my promises, I'd be stuck looking for a cure for Pariah Dark for the rest of eternity.

Ammut was happy, though, as she started covering my face in crocodile slobber the second my mouth shut. Danni pulled her off me, trying and failing to hide her grin. "Think she's why Clockwork had us come here?"

"I guess. Or maybe he just wanted us to adjust some more or some psycho-thing like that. He's been hanging out with Jazz a lot lately."

Danni smirked. "Yeah, I figured that out."

"_Why are you grinning like that?"_

The smirk widened. "Clueless."

Ammut, realizing that we weren't paying attention to her anymore, placed her paws on my shoulders and fixed me with an oddly endearing pair of Cujo eyes. I sighed and petted her on the head.

"Uh, Danny?"

"Yeah, Danni?"

"How exactly are you planning to cure Pariah's madness when people have been trying and failing for centuries? This isn't one of those sappy movies where fatherly love redeems even hardened ax murderers. In fact, I'm pretty sure those movies are a great deal more realistic than this."

"I'm pretty sure you're right." I shrugged helplessly. "Maybe Jazz would have some ideas. I've done plenty of research on Pariah; I can give her my notes and see if she can come up with some kind of diagnosis. It's a start, at the very least."

He-pup help? Ammut tilted her head, considering. Ammut help too! 

Memories exploded into my mind: playing fetch with a laughing white-haired man; glomping an Observant while her master laughed; stalking Fright Knight through the halls; Pariah laughing, laughing, laughing-

"Stop!"

I had fallen to my knees, gripping my skull with such force that it hurt. Ichor trickled from my nose. Danni wasn't faring much better.

So sorry, so sad! No mean hurt master-pups. Only want help master. 

Danni pulled herself to her feet. "Okay. Why don't you show us the memory you think will help out the most? _Gently,_ though," she cautioned, as our father's pet looked ready to do something stupid. "We don't want our heads exploding."

Unfortunately, hippo monsters do not understand sarcasm very well. We spent several minutes convincing Ammut that no, our heads were not really going to explode and cover the throne room with gore and blood.

"_One_ memory," I reminded her.

Yes. Not much time. Help master make happy; make master-pups happy too? 

"Sure," muttered Danni. "Danny, when do we have to be back at the Council chamber?"

"Who cares? It's the Observants. They debate everything to death, then reanimate the corpse and repeat the process again and again and again. We'll be fine."

"Time wise, at least."

"Of course we'll be all right time wise," I teased. "Clockwork's on our side, remember?"

Who Clockwork? Clockwork friend? Clockwork help master too? 

"I don't know if he'll help your master," Danni admitted. Ammut slumped. "But he did send us here, and he knew we'd meet you, so I think he does want to help." Her frown deepened. "Then again, it's Clockwork. You never know with him."

Give one memory now, then Clockwork help master-pups help master. 

"Sure, Ammut. Just give us a sec to-"

_Master hated feeding bad people to Ammut, but he knew that it had to be done. If the bad people weren't eaten, they would destroy the kingdom and hurt master (though master cared far more about the first than his own safety). _

_As always, he insisted on watching Ammut eat. Everyone else was gone- they didn't like seeing the Devourer at work- but Pariah sat sadly on this throne, gazing at the condemned prisoner. _

_Ammut didn't know what the man had done. All she knew was that his soul was evil, horrible, and that he was far too stubborn and evil and wrong to let himself be saved. So she charged forward and ate him. _

_It was an unpleasant business, sitting in Ammut's memories as she did her job. The soul tasted absolutely disgusting, and the part of me that was putting words to the experience, the part that was Danny, kept screaming that this was cannibalism. Whatever it was, it was gross. _

_And then, somehow, the tattered remnants of his evil, twisted soul escaped. _

_Ammut yipped, jerking back in astonishment. __Master? What happen? _

_Pariah didn't respond. The ghost king had fallen to his knees, grasping his head like a man in agony. _

_Master! Why master hurt? _

_He grew still. "I'm fine, Ammut." He stood, a swift, jerky motion. _

_Ammut sniffed her master's soul. A cry escaped her throat. __Master! Master! Master come back! _

"_I'm afraid," laughed Pariah-who-wasn't-Pariah, "that that won't be happening." _

_Ammut fled. _

"-prepare," I finished lamely. The entire memory had lasted less than a second. "Or maybe not."

Help master! Ammut thought-yelled. Her urgency made my stomach boil. It was so strong I nearly blasted the Sarcophagus then and there.

"What just happened?" Danni demanded. "In the memory, I mean. I know what just happened in real life. Real half-life. Whatever."

I thought back to the day I'd met Clockwork, to a story I'd heard in an alternate timeline. "Remember how that alternate nice Vlad said Dan was created? My ghost and human halves were separated, and my ghost half went berserk and took out Plasmius, then they killed my human half and absorbed his ghost."

Danni understood. "A soul merge. You think Pariah went through some kind of involuntary soul merge with the remnants of that prisoner's spirit?"

I shrugged. "That's what it looked like. It could have been a botched soul merge, but…."

"It could also be _way_ too convenient." Danni folded her arms, eyes narrow.

"That's what I thought."

Three years ago, when I'd just gotten my powers, I'd've grabbed the Ghost Gauntlets and blasted the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep to pieces, tearing the parasitic soul from the ancient ghost king and freeing him from slavery… or discovering too late that it was a trap, and dying to the sound of his laughter.

Ammut was mentally yelling at us to help her master, but we _couldn't._ We had no idea if she was lying or if she was tricked or if what she'd shown us was really the truth. Sure, Clockwork had obviously sent us here to find her, but he was big on tests. This was exactly the sort of thing he would do to teach us a lesson- like we needed anymore with the High Council after our hides.

"We can't tell the Council about this," Danni mused. "They'd agree- this is way too convenient- but they'd probably think we were asking for permission to do it."

"But if there's a chance this is real," I continued, "we kind of have to help."

"Stupid hero instincts."

"Wouldn't it be nice if Clockwork just told us what he wanted us to do?"

She snorted a laugh. Yeah, I know- fat chance of that happening. "My thoughts exactly. But Danni, we obviously have to do something. If Ammut's right and Pariah can be cured, he could bring back the Golden Age. Not to mention that ghost attacks in Amity Park and wherever the Infi-Map takes you would go way down."

"That is also convenient."

The stakes were too high for us to even take that factor into consideration. We couldn't jump into anything; we _had_ to think things through.

I'll spare you our thought processes and discussions, because they mainly centered around these things: we needed more information, we couldn't let him out unless we were absolutely positive that we could defeat and cure him, and we definitely couldn't let the Council know.

Our plan A: go bully Clockwork. He's the Master of All Time; he literally knows everything, and he wouldn't risk the Ghost Zone on a test for two confused Phantoms. So off we went to drag the truth from our guardian's vacuum-sealed lips.

Yeah. I don't think it'll work, either.


	14. Reunion

Clockwork was waiting for us in his tower. That was good; Ammut had decided to tag along, and I really didn't want to explain to the High Observant Council why a soul-eating monster straight from the Pyramid Texts was eyeing them hungrily.

"I see you've made a new friend," my guardian commented. He shifted from elder form into a child.

Ammut's eyes bugged out. Neat neat! Is Clockwork friend-of-master-pups wrinkly or little? 

Danni choked. Clockwork arched a brow. Now he was in his intermediate form, much to Ammut's delight. "Did the Devourer say something entertaining?"

"Uh…."

"Can't you hear her?" asked Danni, surprised.

"No. Until your birth, only Pariah Dark could understand her words- though I understand that they are not exactly words."

Oh, good. As long as he didn't ask me to translate the whole wrinkly comment, I was safe. Still, he could ask any second now, so I followed Danni's lead and changed the subject. "She showed us a memory of Pariah Dark being possessed by one of her meals."

Clockwork's eyes widened by a fraction of an inch. If I'd blinked or not known him quite so well, I'd've missed it. My heart sank. Apparently he hadn't predicted that, which meant that Ammut had either been lying or duped. I glanced at the crocodile-hippo hybrid, who was happily snuffling through Clockwork's lair. She'd probably been duped. I really couldn't imagine her deliberately tricking us into unleashing the doom of the Ghost Zone.

"I was not aware of that," he confessed. "I can only see things that have occurred or will occur after my death, and I was human at the time of Pariah's fall. Tell me what you saw."

We did. Then we backtracked and told him what we'd done in Pariah's Keep, just in case he'd given us some privacy and hadn't been watching. When I reached the part where I checked out the Sarcophagus, Danni shrieked.

I spun, ecto-blasts burning in my hands.

Ammut was chewing Dan's thermos. Several thoughts split through my mind: Ammut ate souls, but only the bad ones. Dan had a bad soul. As far as anyone knew, Ammut hadn't had a decent meal in three thousand years.

Oh, crud.

The Devourer swallowed. Chunks of metal disappeared between her jaws.

I said several words that won't be repeated here, just in case there are kiddies reading. Then I charged.

"Drop the thermos!" screamed Danni. That was when I reached her and yanked it out of her mouth.

Aside from Ammut staring at us as though we'd lost our minds, nothing happened. No temporally displaced psychopaths burst out from the scant remains of the thermos, cackling that we were about to meet our doom. No Ghostly Wails split the relative quiet; no ecto-blasts fired at Danni or Clockwork or me.

"…Did that really just happen?" My voice came out in a squeak, but neither Danni nor Clockwork commented. They were too busy staring at Ammut, who gave a little burp and hacked up a small hunk of twisted metal.

What? Had snack. Very chewy. 

At the same time, Clockwork commented, "She just destroyed my favorite form of therapy."

I choked. Danni choked. Soon we were both laughing at the top of our lungs, sides aching. It wasn't quite as good as Pariah Dark in an orange jumpsuit, but this was still pretty funny- not to mention a relief. I'd worried for years that Dan would escape, hunt down my families (both the Fentons and my hybrid clan), and kill them all. That I didn't have to worry about that anymore was almost as surreal as Pariah being my father.

When I finally regained my composure (it took a while, since whenever I calmed down enough to take deep breaths Ammut would ask what was so funny, and that just set me off again), I remembered why we were here in the first place and asked, "What should we do?"

Clockwork glided over to his main viewscreen, flickering into his child form as he did so. Ammut followed, still fascinated by his age-shifting.

Images flitted across the screen: my first battle with Pariah, me and Danni standing in the throne room, the Sarcophagus blasted to smithereens, an angry giant smashing us like bugs. More pictures: Ghost Gauntlets, Clockwork in the chamber, Ammut tearing into her master's side in a last-ditch attempt to save him. Sam and Tucker and Jazz walked through the room, holding guns or cannons or even the Jack-o-Nine-Tails. The timelines moved too quickly for me to understand, but Clockwork had been doing this for centuries. He understood perfectly.

"The Destroyer speaks the truth."

Five simple words, but they had the potential to remake the Ghost Zone and human realm both. My breath caught. "You're sure?"

He nodded, a child with ancient knowing eyes. "I saw the criminal's soul leave him. After that, the timelines splinter, and I cannot see for certain what will happen."

Danni's face lit like the sun. She tried to contain her excitement, but it was impossible. Besides Jazz and me, she'd never had a family before. On the other hand, she knew full well that this was bigger than her, than our family, too big to let childish yearnings affect our reasoning. "Clockwork, how can we free him? What's the most efficient way, the least likely to blow up in our faces?"

He told us, and the smile fell from her face and mine.

* * *

Jazz's mouth worked up and down, up and down, giving her a startling resemblance to a fish out of water. Finally she squeaked, "That's insane, even for you."

"Yep."

"You're absolutely sure that this is legit?"

"Yep."

She blinked several times. "Okay then. What can I do to help?" She leaned against the wall, arms folded over the Time Medallion around her neck. Around her, the world tinged blue with the power of Clockwork's time-out. Other people in the library were frozen in mid-step, mid-page, mid-breath.

Clockwork told her. Her eyes narrowed. "That's risky, Cephissus."

How in the worlds had she known his name? Danni and I hadn't learned it until just a few hours ago. Still, I had more important things to do, so I told her, "You don't have to if you don't want to."

What? Ammut was horrified by the mere suggestion. If master-pups' almost-sister no help, master no get better. Clockwork-who-is-old-young-baby say she help. She need help! Danni laid a hand on her head, a gentle rebuke. She quieted but fixed Jazz with such a pathetic pair of Cujo eyes that only a monster could have resisted.

"Neither do you," she pointed out. She obviously hadn't seen the Cujo eyes… or she didn't realize how cute the mutant maned crocodile-hippo monster really was. I'd bet on the former; Jazz thinks that yetis and salamanders are absolutely adorable. Normal people find them intimidating at best, nightmarish at worst. "You two are in a lot more danger than I am."

"I'm used to it," I grumbled.

Jazz flinched. "Promise me that if something goes wrong, you'll quit right away. All three of you." She glanced at Ammut. "Um, all four of you."

"Only if you do the same."

The four humanoids obediently promised to make a break for it if things went pear-shaped. Ammut refused. No no no. Won't let master's only chance go. Need help master. She changed tactics. Why master-pups say might not help? Master is master-pups' daddy. Help daddies is good. Makes souls good. 

Danni decided to explain. "It's like retreating to fight another day. If this attempt doesn't succeed, we'll try again once we've figured out what went wrong. But if we can't free Pariah, we-" She froze. Her ghost sense had activated, and equally chilly plumes of frost escaped from my mouth.

The Observant appeared out of nowhere, its eye filled with fury. "I knew it," it snarled. "You are hereby under arrest for conspiring to release the mad king." Ectoplasm pooled in its hands, bright enough to destroy the entire library.

The stupid thing obviously hadn't heard our explanation as to why we wanted to do this- that or it didn't care. Couldn't Big Brother have picked another time to start watching us?

My eyes met Danni's. She disappeared with a crack, flying so quickly she'd broken the sound barrier. I encased our unwelcome guest in a hunk of ice. It phased out, but by then I'd already erected a force field. It tried to phase through that, but lightning cracked and drove it back.

Then Danni was there, Jazz's spare Fenton thermos in hand. She uncapped it. In a flash of light, the Observant and its ectoplasmic jail were sucked into the metal prison.

It was a very satisfying and very stupid five-second fight. I'd wanted to do that to an Observant ever since I met them, but they were kind of sort of the ruling council of the Ghost Zone. Now was the worst possible time to imprison them. We were in enough trouble already.

Jazz gawked at us in mute horror, unable to believe the idiocy to which her siblings had descended. "Please tell me I imagined that."

Clockwork took the thermos. "It's stable now," he assured us. "When the Observant escapes, she will believe that she was only held for a moment."

I filed its-her- gender away for later reference. "That's really great," I moaned, "but that won't wipe her memory. She'll still know that we locked her up."

Clockwork nodded. There was a hint of worry in the twist of his tail. "This gives us even more incentive to free Pariah successfully on our first try. He could override the Council's punishment. There is no other way they will let this go."

Fan-flipping-tastic. This day kept getting better and better.

An ugly thought occurred to me. "What if they start another War of Power?"

Danni blanched. Jazz looked sick. Only Clockwork remained calm. "They cannot. Between Ammut's return, our combined testimony, and Pariah's lack of aggression, the Ghost Zone will be forced to acknowledge that he has changed. Besides, I suspect that he will remain incognito for a while. It has been centuries since his last prolonged reign, and he will need to know more about this modern era."

It seemed like good reasoning to me. Everyone knew that Ammut wouldn't serve an evil soul. Clockwork was the Master of All Time, the Seer of the Future. I had defeated Pariah in his last escape and had no reason to help someone who was after my blood. Danni had no direct connections to him, but he would hunt her down due to her relationship with me. It was good reasoning, but that didn't stop fear from twisting my guts.

"Let's go," Danni advised. "If we wait any longer, Danny and I will think ourselves out of this."

Jazz nodded, jawline grim. "You two take the Infi-map to FentonWorks. We'll meet you at Pariah's Keep."

Time was still frozen, but it felt as though it had sped up. It seemed like only a second before Danni and I soared into our father's throne room, clutching the tools we'd need to free him. Clockwork and Jazz were waiting with Ammut at their feet and tail. My guardian held the Skeleton Key.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked him.

"Vladimir had it and several other ancient items in his Colorado mansion. As they are property of the High King and High Observant Council, I relieved him of them."

As long as the Crown of Fire wasn't anywhere nearby, I was fine with that. Pariah was powerful enough; with the Crown and Ring he could quadruple his strength.

We armed ourselves, silent and grim. Ammut watched with barely contained excitement and fear. Think will work? Hope will work. Want work.

"Us, too," Danni told her. Ammut pressed her snout against her thigh. I was beginning to wonder is she was really just a very oddly shaped puppy. She certainly acted like one.

"Everyone knows what to do?" They nodded, just as I'd known they would. "Okay, then." Deep breaths, Fenton-Phantom. "Let's do this."

Clockwork advanced, Skeleton Key in hand, Danni and I by his side. He pressed it into the ancient blood coffin… turned….

The Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep swung open. The Ghost King opened his eyes.

* * *

I am going to go back and edit my chapters so they hint at Ammut's existence. It feels like cheating, but I'd do this before sending a real book in for publication, so it probably isn't.

Next chapter is the big climax. I don't know when it'll be up because I haven't really written a lot of action scenes before. Wish me luck.


	15. Father and Son

If this chapter stinks, I most sincerely apologize. I've never written a fight scene before. I think that this one makes sense, but if it doesn't, let me know and I'll try to rework it so it does.

* * *

The last time the Sarcophagus had been opened, every ghost in the Barrens had known within seconds. The rest of the Ghost Zone had realized he was free just minutes after that. Time was paused, but that wouldn't stop the Observants from realizing what had happened and showing up to crash the party- with four or five arrest warrants. They'd worked with Clockwork for thousands of years, long enough to learn how to slide through his powers and exist between stretched-out moments.

That gave us even more incentive to act quickly.

Clockwork seized the Ring of Rage from Pariah's hand before soaring away. His power thrummed in my veins, stretching out his allies' time even further, giving me and Danni even more speed than normal. Pariah was not affected; he was too old and strong to let a little thing like time magic slow him down.

He bellowed with rage as my twin and I grabbed at him, our hands covered in Ghost Gauntlets. We pulled, trying and failing to tear him apart. He was… stuck. That's the only way I could describe it. The two spirits within him had been together so long, so intimately, that separating them was almost impossible.

At the same moment, Jazz loosed the Fenton Peeler's beam. It wouldn't tear the true Pariah from the soul fragment- it hadn't for Dan- but it would slow him down and distract him. Unfortunately, it also stung all my flesh that wasn't covered by the metal gloves.

I ignored the pain. I'd had worse. I'd _have_ worse if this didn't work.

The air charged with ozone and static, making my hair stand on end. That was the only warning I received before lightning erupted from his armor. It was a double attack: destroy the Ghost Gauntlets that were tearing at him and weaken the puny halfas wielding them. My own lightning powers kept them from short-circuiting, but the force of the blast knocked me backwards, singed my eyes. Somewhere to my left, Danni coughed.

Pariah rose from the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep, his good eye blazing with hate and madness. It really wasn't a good time for philosophical considerations, but I suddenly wondered which Ghost King was my true father: this combined being ruled only by his rage or the master of the Golden Age.

I shook the thought away. No time now, no time for anything but battle.

Fire, ice, lightning, wind, ectoplasm. I peppered him with blasts, herding him back towards Danni. He turned his attention to me. Angry recognition twisted his face. "You have no armor this time, _child._"

His shields dropped. My ghost sense went berserk, screaming that a powerful spirit was nearby, too close for comfort. He was strong, much stronger than me or Danni or Clockwork.

I dropped my own shields. He was powerful, yes, but so was I- and I had a reason to win. He had nothing but lust for revenge. "I don't need armor to wipe the floor with you."

His mace flew towards his hand… but when it reached him, it changed. Rust spots bloomed, eating the metal away. The wooden base rotted from the inside out. In little more than an instant, the invincible weapon aged centuries, perhaps millennia. The ageing spread to his armor and helmet, disintegrating them. He stood before us vulnerable, protected by nothing more than thin layers of red cloth. Thank you, Clockwork.

The distraction was all Danni needed. She snapped into visibility, her and three duplicates, pinning Pariah to the floor. Jazz spun, pinning the prone king under the Fenton Peeler's beam.

Danni and her duplicates pulled.

There was an awful snapping noise, like a bone cracking and shattering. For a moment I thought it was over, that she'd overcome the awful force keeping him together, that we'd _won_- but then the thralls, members of his fleshless army, appeared. Their skeletal hands tore at Danni.

This obviously wasn't working. Observants or not, we'd have to wait awhile before truly freeing Pariah. We needed more time to prepare, to plan. I charged at the Sarcophagus, yelling at Clockwork to get the Skeleton Key.

The thralls got there first. A swarm of them grabbed their master's prison.

I screamed. The Ghostly Wail tore through their ranks, blasting apart bone. The coffin fell to the floor.

Pariah blasted it with an ecto-blast powerful enough to burn my eyes. His prison shattered.

…Uh-oh. That… was really bad. I wondered if a thermos would hold him. Probably not.

Shrapnel exploded outwards, tearing apart more thralls. A hastily, instinctively conjured shield protected me from the worst of the damage.

Pariah laughed. My bones froze. This was more than bad, this was a catastrophe. "Can you win now, children?"

We needed to regroup. I sent an invisible duplicate over to Jazz and Danni. The first me blasted at Pariah, an amateur move designed to buy time. The duplicate whispered, "Someone needs to get the thralls."

Danni inclined her head a fraction of an inch. "My gauntlets are shot," she breathed, "but that's not the worst of it. He's still stuck, for lack of a better word. Jazz, they've been together so long that it's almost impossible to separate them."

Her eyes bulged in horror, but we didn't have time to let her respond. "I'll herd him," I told Jazz. "Stay hidden until you can fire."

She sucked in a deep breath, squared her shoulders. "Roger."

I re-merged with my duplicate and charged. From what I'd read, Pariah preferred ranged combat. In close quarters I should have an advantage. I hoped.

I was right. He wasn't used to people getting up close and personal. Normal, sane ghosts were too afraid of him to even try. But I'd been trained in Shaolin warrior techniques, European hand-to-hand, and street fighting. With my elemental powers cancelling out his and his non-elemental range attacks (mostly ecto-blasts) negated, I had the advantage.

Danni's Wail echoed through the hall. In the corner of my eye, I could see the thralls disintegrating, crumbling to dust. Pariah glanced aside. He'd never heard the Wail before today, and he wanted to see its destructive potential.

I think he was impressed. He was so impressed, in fact, that he let himself be herded into Jazz's range. She fired, and he bellowed with pain as the Fenton Peeler's beam engulfed him.

I circled around him, using his body as a shield. My hands plunged into his sides, grabbing, catching, tearing.

The resistance was incredible. It was like trying to pull a train up a cliff with one broken arm. No wonder Danni hadn't been able to separate them. I couldn't either, and she'd already loosened their bonds for me. Perhaps if we'd come sooner…. "Clockwork! It's been too long!"

Pariah tore me out of his body. My fingers slacked; I lost contact with the foreign soul. "I think, little boy, that you _do _need armor. I am the one who does not."

I blasted him with eye-beams. He let go of me, instinctively grabbing at his injured orbs. At the same time, his foot slammed upwards into my left gauntlet. It tore. He reversed his leg's momentum, planting a perfect kick on the other glove. It, too, tore.

…Triple uh-oh.

For the first time, I was beginning to get scared.

Ammut roared with the voice of a lioness. If you've never heard a lion roar, count yourself lucky. It was just as terrifying as Dan's Ghostly Wail, deep and loud and primal. She dug fangs as long and thick as my thumb into her master's arm. Help! Help master! Need help master! 

"I can't!" I screamed at her. "I'd love to, but I can't!"

Pariah flung her away. I blasted at him, but he formed a shield. My attacks bounced, and I flew out of the way before they could cut open something vital.

Clockwork slashed at him with his time staff. Purple light flared from its top. "I've returned his body to the state it was in at my death," he explained, almost dodging a slash from his foe. The glass in his chest shattered, exposing the delicate clock at the core of his body.

"That would have been nice two minutes ago!" I screamed back.

Still can help master, Ammut told me. Never needed metal hand-clothes. 

And I understood.

Clockwork's eyes widened. He saw the possible future that had just been born from Ammut's words. "Daniel-"

"Can it work?"

Pariah knocked him aside. He spun, crashing into the wall. Bricks crumbled. But before he was hit, I thought I saw him nod.

Good enough for me. It wasn't like I had any other backup plans, anyway.

"Danni! Jazz! Keep him still!" My twin had finished with the thralls, and our sister had gotten in range again. "I have a plan!"

Since no one else had one, they obeyed without question. Danni duplicated into five Phantoms. They pinned Pariah's arms to his body and forced him into the Fenton Peeler's beam.

I flew, accelerating as much as I could in the half-second it took me to reach him. Hopefully the momentum would help me escape after I'd joined the soul merge… the only way I could think of to free Pariah without the Ghost Gauntlets.

It _hurt._ I could sense the struggling spirits: one worn down, almost completely asleep; the other awake and malevolent. It poured over me, under me, into me, saturating my cells with filth….

It was going to take me over, I would become part of this twisted union, adding my power to this perversion, consumed but still aware as this monster I had become destroyed and killed and laid waste….

_No. _Blood and fire, I had _promised,_ I had _given my word._ I would win this.

Somehow, some way, I forced myself between the other two spirits. It hurt, crushing me, compacting me into spaces many times smaller than the Fenton thermos. My blood boiled with the pressure, my bones crunched, my stomach clenched and I wanted to vomit, but I couldn't, not here.

I pushed. A scream echoed in my ears, a scream that was somehow three screams: mine and Pariah's and the nameless other's.

My universe shrunk. I couldn't think, couldn't feel anything but the burning desire, the need, to push, push, push. It hurt so bad, with the souls crushing me and the evil one trying to consume me and the good one's pain and guilt, but somehow I kept pushing.

Clockwork says that it only lasted eleven seconds. It felt like eleven centuries.

And then it was over. The souls I was pushing tore apart like paper in a shredder. I was vaguely aware of them flying outwards, collapsing onto the floor in pathetic heaps. I was vaguely aware of Ammut's roar of triumph as she charged towards her escaped meal.

"Danny!" Danni's scream tore through the air like I'd torn through Pariah, desperate and afraid. She grabbed at me, barely catching me before I fell to the floor. "Are you okay?"

I made some noise that sounded vaguely like, "Mngphff," which she took as a no. She hefted me onto her shoulders, completely forgetting the purpose of our expedition here. That wasn't right. I was a whole lot less important than the potential for another Golden Age. "Go… ge… Pryuh," I choked.

Her face softened. It was all I could see. The rest of the world had faded into rapidly darkening blurs of color. Over the ringing in my ears, the rasping of my breaths, and the thudding of my heart, I heard her say, "I don't need to. You did it, Danny. Our father is free."

And the world went black.

* * *

Duh... duh... DUH! Their father is free! Three cheers for Danny, suicidal idiot extraordinaire!

-Corona


	16. The True King

This is a very long AN, so feel free to skip or come back after reading the actual story.

Item 1: The Muses have cursed me with more inspiration. There will be a sequal. It will deal with things like everyone's reactions, the new family trying to cope, ghost history, and maybe some more of Clockwork's past.

Item 2: Namara Jane Knight and I are having a monster fight. She says that if I don't update enough, she'll sic a Greek beastie named Kampe on me. Kampe has the head of a serpent-haired woman, bat wings, a scorpion tail, a dragon's hindquarters, and about fifty heads hanging from her waist. I said that Ammut could kick Kampe's butt. Who do you think will win? Remember, I vote Ammut, and I'm in charge of the updates! : )

Item 3: Djall is an obscure Albanian demon associated with death and evil. I found him by going through Wikipedia's death gods list and clicking until I found a suitable candidate.

* * *

I have a lot of experience fainting, so I was pretty surprised when I woke up just a few seconds after collapsing onto Danni. Previous experience told me that I should have been out for half a day, at least.

Clockwork helped me up. He, too, was injured: the glass in his chest had cracked, and several pieces were missing. Green blood dripped from several scratches on his arms. His age-shifting patterns had changed, a sure sign of pain. Instead of flowing smoothly from elder to youth to child, he melted through intermediate forms as well: gangly teenager and forty-something with just the beginning of a beard. Despite his pain, the world was still tinged blue with the force of his time-out.

I staggered away from him, not wanting to lean on him while his age-shifting was so out of whack. "Why…?" I began.

He smiled tiredly at me. "Haven't you ever heard the saying 'Time heals all wounds'?"

I grinned at him before turning my attention to the others in the room.

Jazz hadn't been injured- she was human, and humans were ghosts in this realm- but it was obvious that she was exhausted. Danni _was_ injured, but not badly enough to warrant immediate medical attention. The nameless spirit that had possessed Pariah… well, it was apparently giving Ammut a tummy ache. The poor crocodile hybrid was sprawled out next to her prone master, moaning about belly hurt. Ate too much. Belly hurt bad. 

Pariah himself was totally still.

The four of us approached him. We let Clockwork look him over- I was very good with halfa healing, but had no idea how to check up on full ghosts. His age-shifting slowed until it was back to normal: child to youth to elder and back again.

Ammut pulled herself out of her misery long enough to ask, Master better now? 

I grinned. "Yeah. I think he's better now."

She grinned back, all traces of pain forgotten. Hooray! Happy now. Love master. Love young master and young mistress and wrinkly Clockwork-friend and human lady. She trotted over, nuzzled the Ghost King's unconscious form. Happy. Master, wake up! Master need say thank you. Master need meet pups. 

Pariah moaned softly. My heart skipped a beat. What would he be like, now that he was free from the other spirit's influence?

And that was when, as per Murphy's Law, the Ancients decided to show up.

I froze in horror, not breathing, stilling my heart. My shields snapped up, hiding my power from their sixth senses.

But the gray-robed specters did nothing. They simply floated near the walls, watching us with their eerie red eyes. Their faces were completely blank, devoid of thought and emotion.

"Why aren't they trying to kill us?" I hissed, ecto-blasts burning on my hands. They hadn't measured the odds and decided they were toast, though that would have been pretty nice. The Ancients had no will of their own. They were bound to the Observants' desires, mindless but powerful slaves- and I kind of doubted that the Observants wanted us to survive, no matter what the odds against their servants might be.

"I'm clairvoyant, not a mind-reader," Clockwork grumbled. He stared back at the Ancients, looking so much like them that it was downright creepy. I made a mental note to ask why he dressed in the same kind of outfit as they. Maybe it was because he worked for the Observants too? "The Observants don't talk about the Ancients. Only they know how their servants function."

"Not quite true, friend," wheezed a familiar male voice.

I turned. Pariah Dark had risen to his feet.

He looked different, healthier. His fangs had transformed back into regular teeth, straight and white and normal. His skin had lost the ugly grayish pallor, returning to a more typical ghostly white. His missing eye hadn't grown back, but the remaining orb had regained its pupil and sclera. His body had shrunk to normal proportions. His Egyptian-style beard was gone, and he was smiling weakly but joyfully at us.

It was the same smile I'd seen in _Reign of King._ The real Pariah was back.

Master, sniffled Ammut, all thoughts of her bellyache forgotten. She ran over to him, nuzzling his legs.

He stroked her head with a soft nod. "Yes, my faithful pet. It was you who brought these warriors to my aid, were you not?" She nodded fervently, and he turned back to us. "Thank you. You have my eternal gratitude."

Clockwork inclined his head, one lord to another. "I am Cephissus, commonly called Clockwork. These are Daniel and Danielle Fenton-Phantom and their foster sister Jasmine Fenton. What were you saying about the Ancients?" (Formality dictates that he should have given our parents' names as well, "Jasmine Fenton daughter of Jack and Madeline." Of course, it wasn't exactly a formal introduction when we'd just finished trying to kill each other. Besides, he probably didn't want Pariah to freak out about having two teenage kids while the Ancients were still breathing down our necks).

"The Ancients are not the Observants' servants," he explained, his voice slightly stronger. "They are mine."

I started. "But they were the ones who put you to sleep."

"At my command. I broke free from his… influence long enough to give them the orders." He flinched slightly. "But enough about that. How did you know to free me?"

We stared at him. He stared back at us. Danni opened her mouth. She thought for a moment and closed it. I opened my mouth, not to explain, but to remind us of more pressing matters. "Maybe we can tell you after we've figured out how to get the Observants off our back?"

It was the right thing to say. Aside from being a totally valid point, it delayed the explanation of my parentage a while. I knew that we'd have to tell him eventually, but the poor guy had been trapped a in freaky-looking coffin for three thousand years. He needed to recover a bit before we hit him with this next bombshell. At least, that's what I told myself.

Pariah's good eye narrowed in rage. "Ah, yes," he growled. "The Observants." He turned to the Ancients. "Tell me, were they aware of my condition?"

As one, the thirteen Ancients nodded.

My jaw sagged. Suddenly everything made sense: how _no one_ knew about the soul merge until earlier today when it was practically the only explanation for his change in behavior, how it was so difficult to find information on the Golden Age, why they kept my and Danni's identities secret- _everything. _

The war… they could have ended it by doing what I did. They could have separated the soul fragment from Pariah. Seriously, if _Ammut_ (who, despite being lovable and loyal, was not very well-educated in matters of soul merges) could come up with a way to free him, they really had no excuses.

And that made me mad.

* * *

Due to the time pause, no one had screamed, shouted, or fled ahead. We didn't have to hide or hurry, but could walk past wide-eyed supplicants and secretaries. All we had to do was keep our shields up. The Observants didn't know we were in the building until Pariah kicked down the door to the Council Chamber. They might literally have eyes all over the Ghost Zone, but security on their home turf sucked.

Perhaps it was a bit sadistic, but their expressions when they realized what was going on made all the stuff I'd gone through in the past few days worth it. I mean, when the King of All Ghosts, his thrall army, a soul-eating monster older than Egypt, all thirteen Ancients, two _highly_ annoyed Phantoms, the Master of All Time, and a ghost hunter in a battle suit stomp into your sanctuary with guns blazing, you don't say or do anything that would make them want to kill you more. You nod frantically, praying that they'll restrain themselves from strangling you with your own intestines. That was what the stunned, horrified, terrified Observants did. They knew they were screwed. All they could do was grovel, plead for mercy, and pray for the best.

"I demand an explanation," Pariah growled. "You knew that I was being controlled, yet you did nothing to free me."

"We couldn't-"

"SILENCE!" The command burned into my brain, and my own jaws clacked shut with such force that I nearly bit my tongue in half. "Do not tell me that you could not have freed me. This untrained child-" he gestured at me, and I waved "-acting with nothing but instinct and luck managed to cure my madness. Yet _you,_ guardians of the knowledge of the ages, older than this boy by dozens of centuries, were incapable of lifting a finger!"

The room erupted into chatter: frantic denials, terrified justifications, pleas for mercy. The ghost king listened dispassionately, face dark as his namesake.

Ecto-blasts danced in the Ancients' palms, frightening their erstwhile masters into silence. Their new master delivered his ultimatum in a soft, deadly growl. "You will inform my people of the things you have done. You will tell them of Djall's fate, of the true circumstances of my imprisonment, and of what you could have done to prevent the war. You will do this within a year and a day, or I will disband and destroy you."

I have no idea if he was bluffing or not. I think he was- the Pariah of the Golden Age loathed destroying people and would only do it if they were too dangerous to let survive. Still, I had no idea how the other spirit's- Djall's- influence and his imprisonment had affected him, how much he had changed from that benign ancient king.

Will be hungry then, Ammut assured him. Eyeballs no look tasty, but love master. Will do what master say. She licked her lips. Her fangs gleamed in the Council Chamber's dim light.

The Observants gulped as one. A particularly skittish-looking specimen squeaked, "And what of the prince and princess?"

Don't ask me why such a terrified specter decided to bring that up. Maybe it was scared that Pariah would carry out his threats if they said the wrong thing about Danni and me. Maybe it wanted to distract the ghost king (and his soul-eating pet) before he lost patience and consigned them all to oblivion.

Pariah stared at them. Actually, it was more like a glare. Staring implied weakness and confusion, and he had to project furious strength until the Observants had done as he commanded. So instead of asking like a nice, polite, and potentially _weak _ person would do, he barked out a single curt word: "Explain."

The command was directed at the Observants, but Danni was the one to answer. Sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck, she mumbled, "We didn't have time to tell you, but… Danny and I are your kids."

Silence.

"Uh… it's _complicated,"_ I volunteered, not knowing how else to explain.

His face remained guarded, but confusion, shock, and dawning horror shone through his eyes. My heart sank. Apparently he wasn't too thrilled about being a daddy.

Well, that was okay. He'd had nothing to do with it, after all, and hadn't exactly expected something so bizarre. Besides, I'd been half-living without a real father for years now. I could handle not having this one, no matter how much the initial rejection stung. I'd get used to it.

He turned back to the Observants. "My… offspring and I will discuss this," he informed them. "Start planning your revelations to the rest of the world. Ammut, watch them." He spun, cloak billowing impressively, and stalked out of the building.

"Go with him," Clockwork murmured in my ear.

Oh. _Duh. _He wanted to "discuss" stuff with us. I gestured to Danni, and with one final glare at the Observants, we followed our father.

* * *

"Tell your mother I am sorry."

This ghost was nothing like the magnificent, deadly king who had confronted the Observants and frightened them into submission. This ghost was bowed down with the weight of years, of shame, of ugly deeds he'd been forced to commit but helpless to prevent. I was humbled by his trust in us, letting his guard down like this.

This was the real Pariah, the one who had been hurt in ways I could scarcely comprehend. For the first time, I understood Jazz's obsession with psychology, with healing mental wounds and restoring real people from their shadowy shells.

Color washed through the world. Time had finally started up again, but I scarcely noticed. I was too focused on the man in front of me. My father.

Danni glanced at me, trying to figure out what he was getting at. I shrugged. I'm the clueless one, remember? I have no idea why he's apologizing to our mother, or even which mother he wants to apologize to.

"I thought that I had prevented him from… but obviously not. And I do not remember it, but… I am sorry. So, so sorry for harming her like that." His mouth twisted in disgust.

My jaw nearly fell off its hinges as I sputtered incoherently. Oh, joy. He thought he was a- but he _wasn't. _The books credited him with many things, but not that. Danni and I had been born from time travel and messed-up science, not rape.

"Actually," Danni managed, "that's not how it happened."

Hope, relief flitted across his face. "Explain."

So we did.

* * *

Does this seem a bit rushed to you? Because it felt rushed to me when I was writing it.

The final chapter should be up soon.

-Corona


	17. Beginning to Bond

I'm not going to give you the play-by-play of our conversation. Most of it was just my sister and I summarizing everything we've already told you in this memoir, and you don't need to hear a summary of what you've already read.

Danni and I had done a good job of anticipating the emotional difficulty of relating this whole messed-up story to our father, but we'd completely forgotten to spaz about the _intellectual_ problems. It wasn't that Pariah was an idiot- quite the opposite, in fact. He was just as smart as Jazz or Clockwork. The problem was that he'd grown up in an era before the discovery of DNA, much less the advent of assisted reproductive technologies. For him, children came from their mothers' wombs, not blood samples and test tubes.

He was a good listener, though, suppressing the urge to ask every question he thought of and only requesting clarification for the most pressing issues like who the Guys in White were. Danni and I knew that he was still confused, so we tried to give details about modern life and culture that wouldn't overwhelm the story. I'm still not entirely sure he understood everything, though, especially about me basically being a lab rat. That's probably a good thing.

When we were finally finished, he waited for a long, long moment before asking, "Why did you free me? Powerful as you are, you still risked a great deal for one who has only caused you harm." He nodded at me, acknowledging our first meeting. "There are many who would say that, despite the soul merge, I do not deserve a second chance."

"Everyone deserves a second chance," I told him. "Giving you that second chance… no offense, but it had nothing to do with our blood relationship. It wasn't right that you were trapped inside your own body like that." I thought of Dan. Had part of him rebelled against the monstrous whole? I doubted it, but I'd never know for certain. Perhaps if Ammut hadn't eaten him, I would have separated him to figure it out… but it was too late now.

Actually, since Ammut _had_ eaten him, he probably hadn't had anything good left in that twisted black husk he called a heart.

"We would have done it for anyone, even our worst enemy," Danni continued, not meeting his eye. "Danny's right. It was the right thing to do, so we had to do it." She shrugged helplessly. "That you're our father is just an added bonus."

He stared at us, stretching out time almost as effectively as Clockwork could. Then, unexpectedly, he began to laugh. It was a warm, rich laugh: not particularly deep, but filled with delight in pleasant surprises, friendly and comforting. It made me want to laugh too, though I didn't know why.

"Are you attempting to apologize for having the right motivations?" he asked, eye sparkling with mirth. "You should not have helped me merely because of our blood tie. Familial relationships are important, but they must never be allowed to endanger the entire Ghost Zone. You had the right reasons, which is just as important as making the right decision." He smiled, the same Golden Age smile that had once united the entire immense kingdom. "I am proud of you… daughter, son." He hesitated a bit on the last words, still not sure what to make about that but willing to give it a try.

I blinked away tears, tears that startled me as much as his words. It had been a long, long time since someone looked at me with parental pride and said he was proud of me.

To hide my embarrassment (though my red face doubtless gave me away), I asked, "What now?"

Way to ruin the mood, Fenton-Phantom. His face fell. Danni elbowed me.

"I do not know," he admitted. "I need time, both to learn what has occurred in my sleep and to heal from Djall's… influence." His shoulders tightened. "And then I wish to give reparation to those who suffered in the War of Power. Perhaps I am not entirely responsible, but 'twas still my power that caused their hardship. After that, who knows? If the people reject me, I shall abdicate my throne. I have no wish to become a tyrant, not again." His face remained impassive, but he turned, hiding his remaining eye.

I grimaced. Yes, that made sense, but… "But who will rule the Ghost Zone then? Obviously not the Council. They don't deserve it, not after keeping you imprisoned like that. And the Ghost Zone needs someone or some group to unite it. I'm no politician, but even I know that."

"Which of you is my heir?"

Ah, crud, not this again. Dora was bad enough. "We wouldn't be good candidates," I told him honestly. "For one thing, we don't have any experience. For another, we're half-human. For yet another, we're Djall's kids too."

It was the first time I'd admitted that out loud, and boy did it hurt. I liked this man in front of me. I did _not _like Djall. End of story.

He turned back to me, surprised. "What do you mean?"

It was my turn to look away. "Well, the books I've read say that the blood used in the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep came from the creepy soul merge thing- not in those words, of course. They say the Observants won it in 'various excursions.'"

He raised an eyebrow. "Is that truly what they say?" he wondered incredulously.

"Yep."

He shook his head, not impressed with modern educational standards. "It was common knowledge during my reign," he explained. "I was planning to make a weapon that was truly good, something that could only be used in the defense of the people."

"Too bad you didn't succeed," lamented Danni.

A wry smile flashed across his face, but he remained silent, not letting us in on the joke. Then his smile widened fractionally and he asked, "Who is to say that I did not succeed?"

"But if you'd already made a weapon-"

"Two of them, child," he corrected.

"-two weapons, why was there so much left over? The Sarcophagus wasn't exactly tiny, and I have no idea how much Corporal C-29 managed to steal."

"Because they were not made until long after the Sarcophagus was closed."

Danni's eyes bugged out. Mine grew to the same size, if not larger. "You mean- us? Me and Danny?" she gasped.

He nodded.

A weapon that was truly good, that could only be used in defense of the people…. It was nicer than "Public Enemy Number 1," and a _lot_ nicer than "Djall's brat."

But bringing up Djall had been tactless. Pariah's face had clouded again. He was hurt, badly hurt, both in body and in spirit. Like he'd said, he needed to heal. But then and there, he wanted to take his mind off of things. Jazz would probably say that suppression wasn't helpful, but I wasn't Jazz. I couldn't see anyone suffering without wanting to alleviate the pain immediately. I lacked the patience to heal minds.

And so I took his mind off things by asking Danni, "What should _we_ do?" My eyes flickered over to our father before meeting her gaze. She inclined her head ever so slightly. She understood. Operation: Distraction Time was a go.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I think we should tell the people closest to us what happened today."

"Even Frostbite and Pyrrha?"

"Even Frostbite and Pyrrha."

"That sounds painful."

"I'll go with you then. You're such a baby." She glanced at Pariah, who was watching us with just enough interest to banish his melancholy. "We should tell everyone before the wedding, though. If we can't get in touch with Wulf by then, we'll at least have to find him before the year and a day is up."

"And Dora needs an update." My brain had jumped into overdrive, filling me with plans. "And I wonder if Ammut would like playing with Cujo?"

Danni laughed. "That would be adorable. We'll have to ask. I just hope the Frostbite and Pyrrha still let us into their wedding. They're getting married next month," she explained, turning her attention to Pariah, "and the wedding is going to unite their kingdoms, so it's kind of a big deal."

"Pyrrha, King Atesh's daughter, and Frostbite, Queen Mirka's son?" He looked shocked. "When I last saw him, he was naught but a fluffball."

"He still is," Danni assured him.

Mission accomplished: he was so intrigued by this tidbit that all his sorrow was set aside, at least for the moment. I had no illusions that it would stay that way, but it was good enough for now.

"How in this world and the one before did that happen?" he wondered. "In my time, their peoples loathed each other."

"Danni and I locked them in a closet together," I explained. "They came out a few hours later to sign a marriage contract."

And miracle of miracles, he laughed. Apparently, my methods of matchmaking were hilarious enough to override millennia of slavery- for now. "Tell me more."

I knew that this was a rare moment, that most of his next few weeks or months or even years would be filled with pain and hurt and mental demons. I knew that Danni and I would hurt too, that this new relationship would cause us a world of difficulty. I knew that this information could alienate us from our friends, our second family, make them fear or loathe us.

But I also knew that my family was strong, me and Danni and doubtless our father too. I knew that my sister finally had a parent who might not exactly love her now, but who might in the future. I knew that we'd saved an innocent man from a fate worse than death and, in doing so, planted the seeds for a new Golden Age, brighter and better than the one before.

It would be a long, hard, and twisty road… but perhaps we could make this work after all.

* * *

Mirka is another word for yeti. Atesh means "fire." Not very original, I know, but they work.

It is complete! Soon (dunno when) it shall have a sequel. I've already started the first chapter. I hope you like the sequel, "Legacy of Lies," as much as I do. In the meantime, thank you for reading, enjoying, and reviewing. I couldn't have done this without you.

-Corona


End file.
